Communications and Government Affairs Placement Review

I worked in Communications and Govt Affairs, mostly on internal communications. A large part of my role was based around trying to streamline my team's ways of working and communicate our activities for the leadership team. I also worked on external disease awareness campaigns and was responsible for reporting news from different health bodies back to my team. I had both ad-hoc and long-running projects, and the role was extremely varied.

I've developed lots of new skills this year, the main one probably being communications skills. I now understand what a communications role involves and have developed new professional communications skills myself, having worked with so many new people and building so many new relationships. I'm also much better at organising my workload and prioritising tasks. I've also learnt a lot about how the pharmaceutical industry and the private sector as a whole operate.

At the beginning of the placement, I was gently eased into the role, but over time I've been given more and more responsibilities. I began leading on projects within the first four months and led on several more since then. I've never felt overwhelmed with the responsibilities and have always had my manager's support when needed.

My manager was very supportive and checked up on me regularly, both about my work and how I was doing personally. Questions were always answered promptly and I was given just the right amount of guidance. My team were also great at checking in and were always keen to help. They would also include me in various projects and were always happy to tell me about the work they were doing.

I always found the atmosphere at work to be really warm and friendly. There wasn't much hierarchy and people were very approachable. I really enjoyed being in the office as I got to see more of my colleagues and other placement students, and we always got on well. There's a lot of emphasis on improving the workplace culture and general wellbeing, which I really appreciated.

I really enjoyed my placement! Despite the fact that internal comms wasn't my first choice, I learnt so much and got to work on so many different things, including trying out everything I'd wanted to. However, the main reason I enjoyed this year was because of the people I worked with. My team were great and I got on really well with the other placement students, which made a massive difference.

Yes

My main piece of advice would be take all the opportunities and try everything. Get involved - you're only there for a year, so you might as well make the most of it! Also be open and get to know people - make connections and ask questions, as these contacts might come in handy one day and this is also the best way to get to know what you might want to do in future.