Tell us about your placement

I recently obtained a placement at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Stevenage for my third year of study. Here I will be part of a group within the Immunology Research Unit. I will be working on my own project and looking at immune-epigenetics and B cell Biology. I hope this will give me a flavour of scientific research and inspire me to go onto a career within this in the future. My placement journey began in first year, in which I engaged with the Faculty of Health and Medicine placement preparation page to aid me in my applications. I started to apply at the beginning of my second year to numerous pharmaceutical companies, and chose GSK based on my interests. I underwent an online assessment, both numerical reasoning and application questions before being invited to final stage assessment centre.

Here I had an interview and a technical exercise. This was so valuable to me for my future career aspirations as it helped to understand the recruitment process and get valuable insight into industry.

What are your career goals/aspirations?

I hope in the future to be within scientific research, be that in an academic setting or industry. I hope by doing my placement in third year, and my research project at university that I will be able to decide between the two. Now, I’d like to eventually go on to do a master’s and a PhD and be involved in research relating to my two areas of interest, Immunology and Neuroscience. I hope to one day make a difference in providing scientific information and explanations as to why diseases arise the way do and find new medicines to cure these diseases, that would be a great achievement!