Medical Writer Review

I did enjoy my placement for the majority of time but there was a lot of 'downtime' around the 6 month mark for reasons outside of my manager's control. This was due to company restructuring as a result of a large merger that was ongoing throughout my placement. However, I feel it was a valuable experience to see how work can have both it's ups and downs.

My placement was spent in two different departments that worked in very different ways. In the first department I worked with similar people more frequently and I felt any help I gave was appreciated. In the second department I worked with many teams on different projects, many of which were quite important to carry out quickly and correctly - any work carried out on these projects was greatly valued.

Very good support given by both managers during my placement. My first manager gave more support in the form of helping me transition into the working environment, whereas my second manager provided more technical help as I had learned the basics from the previous department. I never felt that I was bothering them and they often offered support before I asked for it.

Due to the nature of the role, the workload fluctuated significantly. There were times where I had little to do for a week, and then suddenly I would have a very work-intensive month. It was however, rare that I had to take any work home with me to complete and I found still was able to organise my workload to allow me to visit other parts of the company to learn more.

At the start of my placement I worked alongside my manager or other members of staff to ensure I was working properly. But, by the end of my placement, I was given a fairly large amount of responsibility and worked largely independently of my manager. I worked alongside my manager all days at the start but by the end I was checking in once a week to ensure I was still carrying out the right tasks.

Although the skills I have learned will not directly help me in my degree studies, they will be of great importance for helping me gain employment after university and allow me to develop further in a future career. It was mainly the little things such as chairing meetings, dealing with external contractors and organising a work-life balance which cannot be learned until you actually do them.

It was a very friendly working environment but it was not non-stop fun - there was work to be done. There were plenty of celebrations to get involved in and I never felt excluded from these. Also, the majority of full-time employees were keen to learn more about the placement programmes available and spent time talking to us so as not to make us feel unwelcome.

The majority of the placement was well organised, but as I moved department half way through the placement, I felt that sometimes there could have been more communication to help out in this aspect. The main problems during the placement were often attributed to the company's restructuring and this was clearly unavoidable and necessary.

I felt that the company invested in me greatly. I was sent on various training courses and sent to visit other areas of the business to learn more about how the company operates on a day-to-day basis. Staff also spent a lot of time with me, often taking time out of their schedule to explain things to me personally if I did not understand/or know about the issue.

I think I would work with the company again - however, most likely I would try and secure employment within the Pharmaceutical industry at any company. The style of working suited me greatly and I have really enjoyed myself. The values that the company shares align with my own - so it would be a bad decision not to look at GSK as a potential future employer.

It was okay. It was very location-orientated as you could imagine. The social events were organised by industrial placement students elected to a committee called IP Unite from the London office. As a result, the events were always in based central London and it was often felt that there should have been a more democratic system in organising events.

I lived on the outskirts of west London near to where my office was based. It was expensive for the quality of housing but my accommodation price was inflated due to the proximity of the tube stops nearby. The cost of socialising was still above the national average as expected but was still a lot cheaper than central London prices.

The nightlife was pretty average - it was fairly typical of a town centre. There were about 2 nice pubs, about 4 or 5 pretty average/bad pubs and 1 nightclub (Liquid...). There were however many good restaurants that were reasonably priced - both chain owned and independent. But, being close to a tube station meant that it was easy to get about to other areas of London.

There were not that many activities outside of work during the winter period, but when summer started to creep in there were more sports teams that were advertised. There were lots of walks/runs that were organised for staff to participate in. At other sites there were more activites offered which I think reflects the general impression left upon industrial placement students at the site I worked at.