Clinical scientist Review

I really enjoyed my year at GSK. The experience I have gained is so valuable.

I definitely felt valued, many full time employees were asking me for their help. I was coordinating 2 projects 6 months in to the placement.

There is a lot of very useful support and guidane at the start from supervisors. This slowly decreased as I got more compitant but there are always opportunities to ask for help and my supervisor always enquired about how I was doing.

Some days were slow because of the nature of the work- having to wait for people to respond or decisions to be made. Other days I have been non stop busy in the lab.

I was coordinating 2 different studies that required decisions on a small scale. For decsions with a large impact I would have to get the advice and opinions of my supervisor and other employees.

I have greatly developed my communication and presentation skills. I am 10 times more confident in the lab and I have no trouble planning my own experiments and analysing the data. I now have a greater understanding of different software and my computer skills have grown. I have made contacts for life and am very prepared to progress on to a PhD

I was working in a brand new office and smartlab which was amazing. The general office atmosphere changed everyday because it was a hot desking situation, it is nice to meet new people from different departments everyday but equally as nice to sit next to the people you know you get on well with. The office is not particularly noisy but not silent. There is an opportunity to sit in a quiet area or sit in the general area.

Very organised, I was the first placement student taken for this particular role and it was very successful. My role naturally evolved throughout the year and I was able to direct this towards my interests.

There are a huge amount of seminars open to all employees every week. There were 3 courses of seminars put on especially for industrial placement students. I completed over 70 online learning courses throughout the year (only have to do that many if you work in a clinical area). I have been on 3 IT courses.

I would really like to work for GSK again although I will have to do a PhD first to get the position I would like. Recruitment is slow at the moment but it may pick up in the near future

Amazing social scene, something like 120 studnets are placed at Stevenage every year so you will definitely find people you get on well with. There is a committee called IP Unite that ran many soical event for all the placement students (including other sites like Ware and GSK House)

Relatively close to London so not cheap like up North, although you can find the odd place that is really good value for money. Housing costs were similar to what I was used to coming from Bath uni. I paid £370 each month for rent plus £40 for bills.

Only 1 club in stevenage that is a bit rubbish but plenty of nice pubs in Old town. It's only a 20 min train ride to kings cross so if you count all the London nightlife then it was amazing! Bit difficult to get back to Stevenage after a night out but we used to hire a minibus or a huge coach to take us all to and from clubs (works out at only £11 ish each)

IP Unite organised a few activites, for example laser quest, paintballing, ping pong, london nights out, boat party. GSK has a gym and sports centre so easy to get involved in football, badminton, netball, spinning classes, yoga etc.