University Industrial Placement Student Review

Item: University Industrial Placement Student at AstraZeneca
Rating: 2.9
Author: Anonymous

at AstraZeneca

Placement (10 Months+)

Pharmaceutical, Science

Cambridge

Review Submitted: July 2026

Overall Rating

2.9 /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!

3/5 - Overview of Role

3.3/5 - Skills Development

2.5/5 - Support and Guidance

4/5 - Company Culture

1/5 - Overall Experience

2/5 - Future Career Prospects

Overview of Role

Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.

- Using AI and machine learning to optimise the process of drug discovery
- Attend design meetings and suggest compounds for synthesis using evidence from computational data and metrics

Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?

- Given partial responsibility
- Project for my dissertation was mainly driven by my supervisor

Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was

3/5

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?

- Developed my skills of presentations: becoming more confident in presenting data to varied and larger audiences than I have done whilst at Univeristy

How would you rate the training provided during your experience?

1/5

How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?

3/5

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

4/5

Support and Guidance

How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?

- Minimal support and guidance
- Supervisor was remote - only had 1 in person meeting with the supervisor per week
- Was not available when I did need help, especially early on in the placement
- Supervisor was condescending when I did ask for help
- Had a change of supervisor as a result of this behaviour 9 months into the placement
- New supervisor was more supportive and gave more guidance when needed

How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?

2/5

How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?

3/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?

- Team atmosphere and culture was very negative
- Overall company culture was positive

How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?

3/5

How would you rate the social opportunities?

5/5

How would you rate the diversity initiatives?

4/5

How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?

4/5

Overall Experience

To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?

- Not a pleasant experience
- Had a lot of pressure with university deadlines as this placement year was the same as my integrated Masters year
- Due to lack of support, dissertation work was very rushed and feedback was given to me very last minute

Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship

1/5

Please rate how your experience met your expectations

1/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend AstraZeneca to a friend?

What advice would you give to others applying to AstraZeneca

- Ensure you are organised to account for the supervisors work
- If there are any issues with supervisor/ line manager/ wider team, take it up to a placements coordinator and speak to your university/academic supervisor about it and seek advice