Undergraduate Scientist Review

At BAT I learnt so many skills in the Biosciences department, some of which helped me secure my first choice dissertation project, and even some PhD supervisors that I'm currently applying for are impressed with some of the facilities that I had daily access to

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues. There were 8 placement students so a good social life outside BAT. My manager an I got on really well and often did things outside of work. I even went on holiday with some colleagues!

Everyone at BAT are supporting whilst on placement. From your line manager to the head of the department. Every one invests in your time there if you are willing to put some effort in! I'm interested in bioinformatics so BAT allowed me to meet up with some in Cambridge who they affiliate with. Here I gained insight if I wanted to pursue the subject area further.

There were some days where I was extremely busy in the lab 8-12 had lunch then was back in the lab 1-4. Then some days I had cell culture for a few hours then other less intense duties such as getting my lab book reviewed. For me I prefer to be busy so it was excellent!

I was given my own project to decide how to carry out and perform, I had a supervisor who was an expert on the subject area and could go to him for advice. For my particular project the set-up was quite complicated so I had another two people aiding in experimentation, which is good as I was never thrown in the deep end. I had to present an update of my work every two months to the bioscience department and people would give feedback and reccommendations on what I should do next, if anything. I also had to present my findings/conclusions to the project to many people accross the group research and development department of the business. This included the chief scientific officer, head of bioscience, head of chemistry, and key scientific members of the organisation.

I gained skills for life, especially as I had to conduct routine cell culture as part of my project. This is a skill highly sought after by many employers that traditional graduates don't aquire as it is expensive and time consuming for Universities to provide. Another was being able to conduct microarrays which is yet not normally attainable at University. Many of these techniques are requirements for PhDs I am currntly applying for.

There was so much laughter in our open plan office. We even got named the laughing crew (or something similar) by the stats team!

The placement was organised ok. the adverts that got sent out for the placement were really generic and didn't name a specific area or project. Nevertheless I still applied as I was certain this would be talked about at interview and it was and was told that there were a few projects I could choose. The induction process was ok. The people were fantastic and everyone within biosciences made sure you were ok. But inductions to other areas of the business weren't organised centrally for all students. Luckily for me I had a line manager who organised these for me with the relevant people.

BAT paid for a Prince2 Project management course which costs a lot of money I'm told. (google it) Which obviously aided me on their project yet also I'm finding some of the lessons are also helping at University. We also were put on a presentations skills course that lasted a day. We were sent to BAT headquarters in London (all expenses paid) to discover more about the business. Similarly I was allowed to go to Cambridge to meet an affilate company of BAT to learn about plant biology and the molecular breeding techniques used there.

I have been in contact since and enquired about future jobs and BAT responded that they would give me a new job if the work was available.

Thhere were 8 of us, with seven of us living in two houses close to BAT. All of us being great friends and some I still visit even though they live over 100miles away at the moment!

I was never short of money and got to go on holiday for a week to Italy. Bought loads of new clothes and gadgets and out everyweek! I think the cost of living really depends on what you're after.

Amazing! Never a dull night!

There is a sports and social comittee that do discounted offers on limited tickets on particular 'days out' some that I attended were go-karting, seeing Derren brown live, rugby matches, and there were tickets for Silverstone grand prix! You could even suggest ideas to the comittee providing you had enough interest.