Industrial Placement Student Review

I enjoyed my year at GSK. I learnt a lot of new things and skills which will be really helpful in my future career. Some times thing got a little repetitive near the end of my placement, but overall I was happy and excited about the work I was doing.

My supervisor and line manager(s) were both very nice and encouraging. Overall in the department I found it a little difficult to talk to people I didn't work with on a daily basis. Most of the department socialising was to do with alcohol so it was difficult to always join in. I felt valued by the people I worked with closely.

At the beginning I was given a lot of support and guidance, which was needed. In the middle there was a bit of an awkward transition between being more independent but having the same level of support as earlier. At the end of my placement I had much more independence, but could still ask questions etc if I was unsure.

Some days and time periods were very busy, mostly in correlation with how much work there was to do in the lab. Other days were much quieter, but I still had plenty to do. Before Christmas, everything was winding down and I was a bit bored, but otherwise I had a good workload

Obviously to start with I was learning so had very little personal responsibility. By the end of the year I had a significant amount of responsibility, for example, I was planning and performing my own experiments, looking after my own cell cultures etc. I didn't have too much that I couldn't handle with, but I could have managed a little more responsibility

I've definitely learned so many new skills and developed lots too. I think the lab work that I did will be invaluable in my future career and give me a leg up against the competition in applying for post-graduate studies and my future career. Alongside practical skills, the soft skills that I develop, like team work, will be really helpful to me in the future.

Sometimes the office could be very quiet. Other times, the office could be quite busy with people chatting. Sometimes it was difficult to work because it was a very large open plan office so it could get quite loud. Overall he atmosphere was quite friendly and fairly easy to work in.

Overall, my placement was well organised. At the beginning a few things weren't ready for us (like our laptops) which was frustrating, but it didn't take too long to get them sorted. The structure of how we were paid was awkward because we were employees of SRG, contracted to GSK rather than GSK staff. Otherwise, most things went pretty smoothly.

We were trained the minimum for us to fulfil the work that they wanted us to do, which was a significant amount of training. Otherwise they always said development is being pushed but we had to seek it out for ourselves. We could observe other members in the department which helped my understanding and gave insight into different roles.

Maybe a decent chance, and I now have lots of contacts within my department. I know people in the department that have been hired after an placement year here. I'm not sure that further employment at this site and in this department is what I am wanting to do in the future, although a large reason for this is location.

Everyone was quite friendly. Sometimes it was difficult to join in in after work activities, especially because they were often Fridays. Again a lot of the socialising was based around alcohol, which wasn't ideal for me. I went to a few lunches out with my team which was a nice way to socialise and was usually easy to attend.

Quite expensive, in comparison to where I lived before. Much cheaper to live in than London, but still needed a house share (at home I wouldn't have) to be able to afford the rent. A lot of socialising was in London, which can easily get very expensive, but the train to kings cross is quite cheap.

There was not much nightlife in the area that I was living and working in, there were a few pubs and bars, and a few good restaurants. Most things were large chains - spoons / nandos etc. It was easy to go to central London and the last train back was about 1.30am

The local area did not have much going on. I would often be away at the weekend visiting my partner. Within work, there were a few charity events organised that you could volunteer to help at. Overall there were not many activities to do in the area outside of work