Industrial placement student Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at GSK and when it came to leaving i didn't want to go. The year made me grow more as both a person and as a scientist.

I was made to feel welcome from day one and if i had any questions there was always someone around to answer them. I felt like the work i completed was valuable to both myself and the team.

I was given a lot of support by the management and always felt that i could ask questions about things that i was unsure about. They gave me advice on the projects that i was working on and ideas to support my results, this support was invaluable.

I always had work to be doing on a day to day basis and even if my projects were completed there was always reading or additional work that i could be getting on with.

I was allowed to work on my own in labs from day to day and plan and perform my own experiments, i was however told which experiments i needed to be doing and lots of guidance.

I learnt a number of techniques while on placement that have given me a valuable insight into the world of work in the pharmaceutical industry, and will help me with my dissertation when i come to working in the labs full time again.

Everyone in the office got on very well and all were able to have a laugh and a joke with each other, I felt that i could be myself and that made the work place a good environment to work in.

It was hard for a definitive project to be set up as the work that was allocated depended on the people and projects that were available at the time. the organization of the interviews and the placement were however well done.

I had a great deal of training prior and during working in the lab and was given training were required on additional things. i was given an appraisal so knew what i was doing well and what i needed to improve on.

I was told during my placement that if i applied to join the company after completing my degree i would have a good chance of obtaining a job within the company.

We went out for lunch as a department quite regularly and had our work Christmas party. The placement students met most weekends to go out and socialize and often went to the pub or met up during the week to do various activities.

The cost of renting wasn't any worse than in Newcastle and I shared with 3 other girls so it wasn't as bad. The cost of going out was more though.

The nightlife wasn't great, there was only one good club which actually shut down in out last week on placement but we were able to make the best of what we had.

There weren't many things organized outside of work, anything that was done outside of work was always organized by the placement students and there weren't many things to do in the town other than shop and go to the cinema.