Industrial Placement Student Review

I have really enjoyed my time during my industrial placement year at GSK. I have learned so many new skills and developed my confidence working in the lab, as well as working in a team and communicating with colleagues during meetings and presentations. There are so many opportunities available, and having an insight into what working in the pharmaceutical industry is like has allowed me feel confident in pursuing a career in this field.

Throughout my industrial placement year at GSK I have felt very valued by my colleagues, as I have been involved and included in team projects and experiments from the start of my placement and my colleagues always make me feel that the work I do is appreciated by the team.

I have been given plenty of support, guidance and feedback by my supervisors throughout my placement, ensuring that I was confident doing my work.

The extent that I felt busy at work depended heavily on what experiments were running at a certain time or on upcoming deadlines, but overall I felt productive on most days. Initially I was not too busy as I was still learning how to perform certain tasks and becoming familiar with projects, but I became fairly busy quite early into the placement.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement year, as I had to use specialist equipment for experiments in the lab and I was responsible for designing, performing and analysing data from experiments that were used to support other projects in the team. Despite this, there was still lots of support from my team so I was not completely alone if I needed any help.

The skills that I have developed during this placement year will be incredibly useful for my final year at university and for my future career after I graduate. I have become much more confident working in the lab through independently designing and performing my own experiments, and I have also improved my communication skills by frequently presenting findings from my experiments in meetings.

The office had a very open, friendly and relaxed atmosphere, which made it very easy to focus on work as well as making it easy to approach fellow colleagues. Also, there was always plenty of people bringing in cakes and other treats when returning from holidays or celebrating birthdays, which was an added bonus!

I felt that the industrial placement scheme worked well. Before starting my placement, myself and all the other placement students were invited to a familiarisation day on site which was a great opportunity to learn more about the placement and the company, as well as meeting fellow placement students and the colleagues in the team I would be working with.

I received a lot of training as part of my industrial placement, meaning that I was able to learn how to use specialist equipment in the lab for my experiments. Additionally, there were lots of opportunities for personal development, such as attending conferences to learn more about work going on in industry and volunteering at company-related events.

There was a large community of industrial placement students across the company, meaning that there were plenty of social events organised specifically for placement students, from chill-out movie nights to nights out in London. There was also a number of social events within my department, meaning that I could socialise with and get to know colleagues in my department outside of the office.

The cost of living in the area was more than what I was used to at home and at university, however there were still some venues that were fairly inexpensive so that it didn't cost too much to socialise and do activities outside of work.

There were a couple of bars and pubs in the area that were not too expensive that were good for having a couple of drinks with colleagues at the end of the week. There was also easy access to London so there are plenty of opportunities to make the most of the nightlife in London as well.