The work itself was interesting and challenging - but being able to work with wonderful teams from all over the globe was a massive privilege

My decision to do an industrial placement year 

Workplace experience is so important and it provides skills that can't really be taught any other way. I saw the personal growth provided by university as an extremely important developmental step but was always conscious that real work experience would be essential to securing a role in computer science. 

So, I decided before even coming to university that I would be finding a placement year.

The best bits and skills I learnt from my placement

The undergraduate cohort was full of the most hard working, interesting and lovely people I have ever met. Being able to spend my days around them 3 days a week was a great joy and my memories of the office are always sunny. The work itself was interesting and challenging - especially leading nerve-wracking meetings with clients - but being able to work with wonderful teams from all over the globe was a massive privilege.

As far as university goes, the main skill I gained was a sense of routine - waking up before 8 o'clock is no longer the hardest part of the week. For skills that I can take into my future career, my organisational and communication skills have improved so much and an office environment is no longer a daunting scary place.

A typical day in my role at Pfizer

A day in the life during my placement became fairly consistent over the final few months. Night time showers meant I only needed 30 mins to get ready in the morning, then a 30 minute drive (or a 50 minute bus if my lift was working from home) into the office. I would secure an apple, banana and an orange from the complimentary fruit basket for later, find where my team or the lovely group of placement students were sitting and start my day with an hour of emails/early meeting prep! I would sometimes go for a coffee or some fruit water at the office cafe.

From 10am onwards I would crack into the real work - be it meetings, meeting prep or technical work, my workload varied massively. As a project manager (PM), when it is going well there isn't much to do so I spent a lot of my time developing 14 identical medical media hosting websites for 14 different markets - which generated over £80,000 in revenue for my team!

At 12pm on the dot I would make my way to the canteen for a lovely £4 lunch and pile up the free salad-y sides. Sometimes this would be delayed by a leisurely 5k with the office run club. Once that was finished, the undergrads would take a lap around the office for some fresh air and a good chit chat, grab a free ice cream on Wednesdays and finish off with a game of pool before heading back to the desk for more serious work.

At 3pm without fail I would begin to flag, so I'd spend 20 minutes eating my fruit taken at the start of the day as a pick-me-up. I’d maybe chuck another game of pool or two in there too! On a Tuesday I would leave an hour early to go and play football for the office football team due to the beauty of flexible office hours. Otherwise, I would aim to be ready to leave at 5 when the best bus home left. Then my evenings and weekends were my own and earning money means you can actually afford a pint in London!

How my course helped prepared me for my job role

Every module that involved working in a team and employing soft skills and communication skills came in handy over my placement, for example my Software Hut module working with a real client and my Global Engineering Challenge which encouraged cross-degree communication and collaboration.

How my placement experience has shaped my career plans going forward 

It has shown me what I really value in a job - money is not as important as people, I'm much more likely to be motivated by a nice time and a good conversation than silly amounts of money.