Research Officer Review

The people were friendly at ONS and I was placed in an office with a nice atmosphere. However, the work is what brought my score down, as the work was not relevant to my degree and it was very boring most of the time. I feel like they could have placed me somewhere more suited if they took the time to look at my strengths and interests.

I felt valued to a certain extent, but it's quite difficult to know when you don't get a lot of feedback and much appreciation shown for the work you do. My managers were nice people but very busy.

I was given some support and guidance at the beginning of my placement but definitely not enough as I should have got. Towards the end, I didn't need much support or guidance, as expected.

I spent about seven months of the placement bored and for the other three months, there was either a good balance or I was busy. The first couple of weeks are probably the worst - all they seem to give you is stuff to read and you have to complete e-learning courses which are quite pointless. A lot of the time, the computers and internet aren't even ready to use when you arrive, which is what happened to me and was frustrating. Later on in the year, I was given more responsibility which meant I was more busy, but the work I was given was still boring most of the time.

I was given an expected amount of responsibility during my placement. As the year progressed, I was given more responsibility, such as mentoring another colleague and managing parts of our publications.

I attended a good amount of courses during my placement, which I enjoyed. However, the courses were not really relevant to my degree. The work I completed will not aid me with the rest of my degree, but there's a chance it will help me at some point in my career.

General atmosphere was good and the people are friendly.

It wasn't set up very well. There was no job description for the role and I never received one - I just worked it out for myself after starting. The communication from ONS is poor before starting, it takes them months to contact you again after confirming that you've got the job. When I started, I had to read for a couple of weeks so some sort of plan could have been set up ready for when I started so that I wasn't really bored.

They were good at letting me go on lots of internal courses. However, I would have liked to go on external ones too, which I felt like I couldn't do because of costs.

They would be appealing if you could go back to a good division. However, they don't offer jobs to placement students for after they've graduated. Instead, the students are the same as everyone else and have to go through a long application, interview and assessment process to get the job and even then you can't decide which department you want to go to.

Social scene was good amongst students and colleagues.

Cost of living fairly low in Newport, but most students choose to live in Cardiff as it's much nicer. The costs there are a little more expensive but still cheaper compared to places like London and Bristol. Cardiff is about a 15 minute drive from ONS (depending on traffic) and there's also a bus service right outside of ONS.

I rated the nightlife in Cardiff over Newport, as nobody goes out in Newport. Everyone arranges events for Cardiff as it has excellent nightlife and I would recommend it for other students.

There were some opportunities but not very varied.