Industrial Placement Student, Analytical Chemistry Review

Working within a specialist team, collecting and analysing data using a variety of spectroscopic techniques which is used to develop models which are applied to pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.

Yes, placement students are generally treated as competent and the work you are given is truly impactful. You are fully responsible for planning your own workload, calendar and experiments as well as drawing conclusions and presenting results to the wider department.

Yes, there are plentiful opportunities to develop new skills, both scientific / technical and human / soft. I would say I especially grew when it came to managing and organising my own extended project, as well as in data interpretation. At times, I wished it would possible to have more exchange between different teams as many of the technical skills I developed were highly specific to my team's specialised function and as such I had limited opportunities to develop more general analytical experience outside of this niche. The placement is advertised as including a 10 week independent project where you can gain experience outside of your primary team's research group, however unfortunately this is misleading; some students are strongly expected to complete this project within their own group.

I received a lot of guidance and support during the placement both from my line manager and supervisor, who both genuinely wanted me to succeed and cared about my wellbeing. I felt comfortable reaching out to unintroduced colleagues who had specific experience to assist with problems during my research, and everyone was friendly and eager to help. This being said, the organisation is large and everyone is busy and as times it can feel as if you are forgotten about unless you specifically ask for help. There is also a strong expectation you will sign up for / seek out opportunities yourself which is great, but it can be challenging if you struggle with self confidence or anxiety and feel slightly overwhelming and competitive between the placement students. I didn't feel as if the policy on university work was particularly great and I had to spend many weekends writing my dissertation.

The culture is a mixed bag. AstraZeneca feels as if they genuinely care about your wellbeing, and there are a variety of opportunities for social events, career development, employee resource groups, etc. There is a good work-life balance and good employee benefits. However, the organisation and site is massive and I personally did not enjoy this aspect particularly. It was very normal to sit next to someone in the office and for you not to introduce yourselves to each other and this made me feel anonymous and not particularly settled-into the department. The office wasn't unsociable per se, just that there wasn't a great sociability across the entire floor or building simply due to the size. There are a lot of placement students and as such it feels many colleagues don't feel that bothered to get to know you as you are just a transitory presence.

I mostly enjoyed my placement, and I think it has helped me develop new scientific skills and experience of what the scientific workplace is like. It was definitely personally challenging at times but I think experiencing these challenges has taught me a lot about myself. Completing the research project, including planning my own experiments, understanding the root cause when things went wrong, understanding when and how to ask for help or clarification and communicating scientific concepts well are some areas I have improved. I personally struggled a bit with integrating and I think this prevented me from making the absolute most of the opportunities available to me. Compared to some other companies, it is difficult to continue on at AstraZeneca after your placement, especially as they seem to hire significantly more placement students than there are places on the graduate scheme(s).

Yes