Industrial Placement Student - Early CVRM Review
at AstraZeneca
Placement (10 Months+)
Science, Pharmaceutical
Cambridge
Review Submitted: July 2025
Overall Rating
5 /5
The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!
5/5
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Overview of Role
5/5
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Skills Development
5/5
-
Support and Guidance
5/5
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Company Culture
5/5
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Overall Experience
5/5
-
Future Career Prospects
Overview of Role
Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.
I work on a project that aims to characterise in vitro glomerular disease models. My day to day work includes cell culture, qPCR and immunofluorescence imaging. I also perform data analysis on the data obtained in my qPCR and immunofluorescence experiments. I attend team and department meetings and also have the option to attend talks aimed at a broader audience designed to raise awareness of other work being done at AZ.
Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?
At the beginning of my placement I was given a lot of support and training. After around 3 months I was given responsibility for my project, which I mostly work on independently. I was also given freedom to create protocols, choose doses of compounds based on literature and to choose assays to use in my project.
Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was
5/5
Skills Development
Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?
I have learnt a lot of new wet lab skills such as cell culture, qPCR, western blotting and immunofluorescence staining. I have also had the opportunity to learn confocal microscopy. I have expanded my coding skills and have been able to create data analysis code scripts. I have also improved my confidence with data analysis and presenting my work to large audiences.
How would you rate the training provided during your experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?
5/5
How would you rate your development of personal / soft skills during the experience?
5/5
Please rate how these skills have helped you in your career development
5/5
Support and Guidance
How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?
I have received a lot of support from my supervisor in learning new lab and data analysis techniques. My supervisor has also helped me practice for presentations and has also always helped put me forward to present my work. I can always ask for help and guidance when my data doesn't look as expected and my supervisor is happy to work through issues with me.
How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?
5/5
How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?
5/5
Company Culture
What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?
My entire team has been super welcoming. I also feel that I can reach out to anyone in the company who is doing work I'm interested in and they are always happy to chat with me. Overall I think everyone is very friendly and enjoys collaborating and helping others. There is a lot of collaboration between teams which I enjoy.
How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?
5/5
How would you rate the social opportunities?
5/5
How would you rate the diversity initiatives?
5/5
How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?
5/5
Overall Experience
To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?
I have really enjoyed my placement. It has confirmed to me that I enjoy working in the lab and would like to pursue a career in research. I have also made friends with a lot of the other placement students and I think I will continue seeing them even after I leave Cambridge.
Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship
5/5
Please rate how your experience met your expectations
5/5
Future Career Prospects
Please rate the future employment prospects at AstraZeneca
5/5
Recommendations & Advice
Would you recommend AstraZeneca to a friend?
Yes
What advice would you give to others applying to AstraZeneca
My advice would be to make sure that the company values align with your own values as that is an important consideration when choosing a company to work at. I think it is also important to be someone who enjoys collaboration and working in a team.
