Industrial Placement Student Review

While I am overall fully satisfied with my placement, towards the end, as I begun to understand more about the experiments and their design, I would often struggle to be heard when giving advice based on scientific articles that I had read (and that my project supervisors hadn't).

As a person, I felt very valued; as a scientist, not that much, but overall more than I had expected. I would have expected to do more "technician" work, where I would follow strict protocols given by my supervisor, but as the year went by, I would be given more responsibilities and was valued more as a colleague.

Support was fantastic; guidance could have been better as often my project supervisor would not be aware of the papers that I had read, and would not read them when I pointed them out either.

It changed periodically--I think quite a lot of the time I felt I was very busy and that I could've used a break, but every now and then I would have a couple of weeks where only a few things needed to be done daily, and I could concentrate on other things, e.g. writing my final year report. I wouldn't say I was ever actually bored.

Responsibility was given a lot--for example, I was able to handle a very expensive piece of equipment without supervision, and was able to train other permanent staff! As for the experimental design, I often felt my advice is not taken into account. This meant that all my experiments I would have to run by my supervisor, and when he was not happy with them, I wouldn't be able to do them.

The skills I obtained are highly relevant to my degree course and I will definitely have use for them later on in my life.

A lot of the time, people would be very concentrated on their work, so mostly it would be very quiet. However, there were numerous times when the whole office would be engaged in an entertaining conversation. I personally prefer a quiet working space. Also, outside the office, e.g. in the labs and on the corridors, people would be much more approachable and willing to talk, as is to be expected. So there was fun, but the majority of it was not in the office.

A major drawback I experienced was that my line manager was on holiday for the first two weeks of my placement, which left me feeling that I didn't really have a person to go and talk to, though everyone else was very helpful during that time.

The company invests well into all its industrial placement students--the only thing they didn't cover was travel to outside seminars, but there were plenty that occurred on site.

I'd say, at this point, academia appeals to me better, due to what I'd say is better experimental design. On the other hand, job security and benefits are definite perks within industry. If a good opportunity comes up, I would definitely have a go at either.

The IPs went out weekly, if not more often, and lunch would be had together with other IPs.

I worked in Stevenage--so 20 mins by train from London, but rent and pubs were much less than they would be in London.

While there was only one night club, which played, shall we say, interesting music... A lot of the time, students would go for pub crawls or into London for the night. So we made the best out of what we could.

You can join GSK gym, or a local gym, and I think there's a number of activities you can join in in the Leisure park, but I've personally not gone after them.