Biological Sciences IP Student Review

I really enjoyed the work that I performed during my placement and felt it was extremely beneficial. The people were always very friendly and helpful. The only downside was that I did find parts quite stressful and tiring due to long days and an hour commute.

Everyone was extremely friendly and were always willing to help me with any problems. I felt sad to be finishing my placement.

My supervisor, Poonam, was extremely helpful and gave me loads of support whilst I was writing up my project writeup. She always looked out for me and would check that I wasn't getting to stressed with the workload.

During the wind down to Christmas I did not have a lot of work to do as experiments could not be performed but I kept busy reading scientific papers. However, then from january onwards I was extremely busy with my projects, which at times I found quite stressful.

I was given a huge responsibility during my placement. My project work was essential for the programme team and I had a lot of people depending on me. I was also given the responsibility of showing work experience students round and teaching full time staff flow cytometry.

I have gained great laboratory skills, which has built my confidence in the lab massively. As well as this I have developed my communication and presentation skills through interactions with the programme team.

The office was always very cheerful with people chatting and laughing which was nice. There were also frequent department meetings and social events to get to know others in the department.

The placement set up was not as organised as usual due to the merging of two departments in GSK at the beginning of my placement. This meant that redundancies were going on and students were unable to start on projects until much later than usual. Once the merge was sorted, everything was seamless.

GSK provided presentation skills workshops and Scientific writing workshops, which really helped improve my skills. As well as this there were frequent seminars by internal and external speakers which helped broaden my knowledge over the year.

I would definitely apply for jobs with GSK after graduation as I feel it is a really good company to work for. I have been told to keep in contact for PhD opportunities. GSK do not give job offers just from a placement year.

There was a friendly attitude between all placement students and social events were regularly organised.

I did not live in the area, I lived at home with my parents for the year so I'm not sure about housing prices. However, socialising prices were not too bad.

Reasonable.

THere were some social department nights and other IP events that you could get involved in.