Analytical Placement Student Review

AstraZeneca was a brilliant placement year and I had varied work to do each day. I enjoyed the working environment, the people as well as the projects I worked on.

I felt very valued by my colleagues and the team environment was very welcoming.

My supervisors and manager were very supportive and gave me guidance, whilst still allowing me to grow independently as a scientist. I had one to one meetings with my supervisor and manager regularly which allowed me to raise any issues I needed to. My supervisors were willing to support me in all aspects of my placement year. One example includes helping my professional development and supporting my application for the registered scientist award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Working as an analytical chemist, the workload was very varied and interesting. Some days were spent completely in the lab, whilst other were spent processing data using different systems/software. Following current circumstances with COVID-19, I worked from home more often. However, during this time I was still able to develop as an analyst and learned new skills and software which I had not used previously. The use of Microsoft Teams allowed collaboration in teams and allowed me to maintain contact with my supervisors regularly.

I was given lots of responsibility during my placement year and felt independent and proficient in carrying out many analytical techniques. I was given the opportunity to lead weekly meetings to create a testing plan. Moreover I had a 10 week student project which I was responsible for completing. However this was affected by covid 19, so I could not complete all my lab work independently and had to ask for assistance from my supervisor. Despite this I was still able to fulfill the output from the project by learning and implementing a complex data processing method and this data was used for future development of a drug product.

I learnt how to use many analytical instruments e.g HPLC, NIR, KF, dissolution systems which will be of use in my future career. Moreover I was trained and became proficient in chromatography data systems including empower and Chem station which will be useful for me to bring forward to another analytical chemistry role once I have graduated. In general my lab skills have improved vastly which will help in my degree and I have developed as an analytical chemist from the start of the year.

Everyone in the office was very friendly and easy to approach, even the manager. Everyone was willing to help in any way they could.

The placement was well organised with the first few months spent on training and then working within the team. Analytical students then had the opportunity to pick a student project which was 10 weeks long. My 10 week project did get delayed, therefore the lab work was affected by COVID19.

There were lots of optional training course you could enroll on to develop different skills in an area you may not be familiar in. The initial training process was around 2 months long. There were also undergraduate problem sessions to help keep up to date with university content.

There is a graduate programme which i am interested in applying for. In addition, there are good job prospects for those students which are in their final year of study during their placement year as there were some full-time permanent roles.

There is a good social scene as there are a lot of placement students on the placement year at AZ and the students mostly live in Macclesfield.