Industrial Placement Student Review

I really enjoyed my placement at GSK. I had my own individual project that I worked on, which at first was challenging but became really rewarding. However, towards the end of my placement when my project had finished, I didn't have much work to do and so found it quite slow/boring in comparison.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. Even in my first week full time members made the effort to learn my name and were very friendly which helped me to settle in. They treated me like a full time member of staff and the things that I said I meetings was listened to and I was often asked to help out with other colleague's experiments. We had various team socials which made us grow closer as a team.

I was given a lot of support from my supervisor. At the beginning of my placement I was fully trained in everything I was doing, and gradually became more independent as the year progressed. My supervisor was always around if I needed help/advice, and we had weekly catch up meetings to discuss my progress. If my supervisor was away on holiday, the rest of my team were very supportive.

Due to the nature and timings of my experiments, some days I was really busy in the lab and other days I had hardly anything to do. I found that I had to be proactive and ask for extra work, help other team members with experiments or find my own work to do to fill the time.

I had my own project to work on during my placement, which I directed and carried out the experiments for by myself, asking my supervisor for advice or his opinion when I needed it. As the year progressed, I had more responsibility and less input from my supervisor. My project was linked to the overall team objectives and helped inform team decisions.

My placement year was invaluable as it helped developed many of my skills, for example, my lab skills have improved drastically during this year. I have also improved my scientific writing through a workshop run specifically for placement students, which will help with lab reports and my dissertation in final year. My confidence and communication skills have also improved by being involved in meetings and presenting my data.

The atmosphere in the office was friendly but quite serious at times.

The work placement was extremely well organised as it has been running successfully for a number of years (many of the full-time staff previously did a placement at GSK). All the students spend a few months training alongside their supervisor before becoming more independent as the year progresses. My one criticism would be that you are employed by an agency (SRG), which are not organised, and there was a lot of confusion about holidays this year which meant many people accidentally took too many (and so this was taken out of our final wage).

The company invested a fair amount of money and time into our training, we were trained in many techniques and trained to use lots of expensive, specialist equipment. We also had specific workshops and careers sessions. We also had the opportunity to take development days, which were paid, where we could learn more about different parts of the business. For example, I got to shadow people on the business side of GSK, visit the clinical trials unit and visit external labs.

Future employment prospects are good within the organisation but many of the lab-based roles are very competitive and so require a Masters or PhD. Therefore, it is quite rare for students to get offered jobs from the placement year. However, there is a fast track application process on to the Future Leaders Programme (FLP) grad scheme if you do a placement at GSK (mainly business based roles).

There are a large number of students on placement at GSK (around 120 on my site alone) and so lots of social opportunities. There is a society run by students (IPUnite), which put on events. Some of these were good(Christmas party, boat party on the Thames), but some were less appealing. Full time members of staff also ran events such as Pub Socialswhich were fun.

Cost of living was quite expensive as near-ish London (Stevenage), but you do get paid a wage to be able to live comfortably (so don't be put off by cost of living). Drinks weren't too expensive in Stevenage but we mainly went to London instead so was more expensive.

Nightlife in Stevenage is shocking, we ended up getting the train in to London instead (25 mins on a high speed train). There are a few pubs which are okay but Bar and Beyond is not great.

Fair few socials every now and again (dependent on team/department), and sports teams. Also 'orange days' (team volunteering). Lots of fundraising such as tough mudder as well.