Industrial Placement Student Review

I was in the lab learning new techniques most days. I regularly did cell culture, which takes up a lot of time, and then moved on to preparing and running qPCR. Due to the pandemic, I worked from home if I didn't need to be in the lab and could focus on writing up experiments and researching what I had been practicing.

There were so many things that I had never even come close to learning before this year, nearly every experiment taught me a new technique. Having never worked in a cell culture hood before, I learnt how to culture cells without contamination. We also had weekly team meetings where work was shared and this built on my presentation skills. Experiments require a lot of forward planning, and so my organisation also has been improved.

I was responsible for my own project and also allowed to join a second non-placement project, which was fantastic. I would help out as much as I could with maintaining the lab, however other than that I wasn't really given much more. I offered to help but often this was dismissed and it felt a bit deflating at times.

We had weekly 1:1 meetings with our supervisors to talk about work plans, and if you were in work you could ask other people for advice. There was no structured support other than this though, which I feel needs to be changed, leaving a lot of us unhappy. Starting a job in the pandemic was difficult, and no one asked the students how they were doing, or if they even had met each other.

It was difficult to get an idea of what it was like in normal times as there have been massively reduced numbers of people due to the pandemic. My experience has been that it is pretty quiet and it is hard to network and meet people, even when I've been in to work everyday. All meetings are on teams which can be helpful, but also feels disconnected when you're sat in the same room!

COVID massively negatively impacted the placement, however I am happy that I did this year, as I feel I have learnt a lot, and I would do it again but it does need more support in place. We didn't get to choose our projects which lead to people working on something they may not actually enjoy, and often you were left to just work it out, as team members were busy on their projects.

Yes

Be aware that you will need to learn a lot, and that's ok- everyone has to start somewhere and things will go wrong. Everytime you practice it will lead to development that you might not even be seeing, but it is happening. I think the most important thing is to be comfortable within yourself, and realise it takes time to build these skills.