Industrial Placement Student Oncology Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at AZ, I was given a large amount of independence and was pushed to work at my best. My supervisor and team could not have done more to support me in my work as well as being very easy to get along with. The placement students also got along really well and we had a very good social life outside of work

I was able to get involved in multiple projects and if something of interest came up my colleagues always included me. Also towards the end of my placement when new people started I was able to help them out through what I had learned from starting recently. Additionally I was able to pass on some of the skills I had learnt at university to my colleagues such as certain types of software.

My supervisor met up with me at least once a week and was always checking in to make sure I was okay. She also was very helpful in sorting out any issues I had. My supervisor helped me out a lot with practising my presentations and improving my report writing skills.

The start of my placement was slow due to the nature of the work and the difficulty in training however once I got through the training I was nicely busy. It got very busy towards the very end of placement due to university deadlines however this was to be expected.

Towards the end of my placement when I was fully trained I had a lot of independence which means I had full responsibility for the experiments I was running. Additionally I was asked to help the team where possible and was often asked to help out if people were away.

The skills surrounding working in an industrial environment as opposed to an academic one will greatly help me to adjust to working life after university, for example attending meeting, sending emails and working as part of a large and global team. The organisation skills I picked up working in an environment where experiments are planned months in advance will greatly assist me in my final year of university.

The atmosphere in my office on the whole was very pleasant. Everyone got along very well and was very welcoming. Everyone tended to help each other out and wanted to see each other do well at their careers. However sometimes with the changes ongoing at AZ may have caused some stress everyone largely dealt with it exceptionally well and remained very positive.

My project was well thought through and organised, however the training was slightly slow largely due to things that couldn't be avoided. Also the training process was slow for all members of staff and is being looked into. I had targets to reach by certain deadlines and on the whole this was successful.

During my time at AstraZeneca I really felt that the company took the time to understand what you wanted from the experience and tried to give you that. This was evident right from the application process to what team you were put in and what project you were assigned. There were multiple opportunities to try things outside my project.

I am applying to the graduate scheme and will be looking into a career at the company as I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Also the graduate scheme is set up largely the same as the industrial placement year in that they want to develop you as a scientist and make sure you get the most of the experience.

As the site I was at was shutting down there weren't a lot of placement students however there were many at the nearby site which meant we had a large social group. The site I was at also helped to encourage students from different companies to get together through charity work or events at the site.

The area was very cheap, my rent was £60 a week and most pubs nearby were very reasonable. The cost of getting to Manchester/stockport was around £7. AZ also offers membership to clubAZ which provides discount to certain places. AZ were also very helpful in finding reasonable accomodation.

The nightlife in Macclesfield was very poor in terms of nightclubs however with a large group of us it didn't matter too much. The pubs in macclesfield were very good and there was a lot of them. Manchester wasn't too far away however the trains don't run late and it was a struggle to get a taxi.

AstraZeneca put on a lot of events throughout the year including a christmas ball at Tatton, fancy-dress rounders and it's a knockout competition. Also there were many clubs such as badminton, walking and running at work. You could also join the gym or play football at both sites. They also ran yoga.