Placement year failure

Good morning/afternoon/evening team

I'm a 22 year old who studies a very sought after subject at a second rate, non-russell group, university averaging a 1:1 so far. This year we're in now is my penultimate year out of four years and was supposed to be my "placement year".

While choosing my course throughout the UCAS process i knew without a doubt that I wanted to pursue a placement year to increase my postgraduate opportunities. Throughout second year, while my coursemates, friends and even crushes started going to interviews and assessment centers, I was still applying. This continued all the way through to summer way past exam time. Still absolutely nothing. Not even so much as an interview. The worst part is that I have no idea what went wrong as time after time you're informed of a rejection you're not told why due to high volume of applicants. At this point I was absolutely gobsmacked. All my coursemates were in basically the same shoes as me experience wise and academically.

I started to brutally second guess myself and could never stop thinking about why I couldn't find a place yet everyone else had a fully paid, dedicated student placement year waiting for them. I guess most of them will get postgraduate jobs in the bag before they return for final year.

Now i look back maybe i should have simply call it quits and simply gone back to university that September as if i was simply doing a 3 year course with no sandwich in the middle. I wasn't having any of it. I decided I was going to have a year out whether doing a placement or otherwise.

Since then, I have not found and secure ANY work off my own back and it's now April... late April. The work which i've been doing up until now has been given to me served for free right off a gold platter. My family have somewhat more than your average connections. I was able to intern at a company for about half a dozen months (unpaid of course) but could never shake off the dreadful and horrible feeling inside that I never earned any position whatsoever. I've pretty much wasted an entire year and now that it's April all the summer internships have gone completely.

Of course I'm grateful for not sitting around for an entire year but compared to my coursemates, I honestly feel an entire year behind them. They've gained a module while doing their placements and I have gained nothing and have to retake a module when final year begins.

Has anyone had similar feelings about their placement year?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Cailloux

............

A CV doesn't say whether a job was paid or not, so it makes no difference if you have leveraged a position through family connections. It still gives you experience.

Get in touch with your Uni careers service asap, because no matter what you, your family or friends are saying about your applications, they clearly suck according to employers, and as you are finding out, employers are the ones that count. You need to make your applications more effective.