Help for getting a placement at University

I was wondering which universities were the best in getting work placements for a year in industry or a summer placement. How do they help? Do they help at all?

I'm thinking of getting into an Engineering subject, but I'd like to know what support is given to people from any course.

Reply 1

username2694731

Original post by Ado099

If it's engineering, quite a few unis have degrees with a placement inbuilt.

Reply 2

Helloworld_95

Bath is very well known for getting people into years in industry.

A lot of companies will have a strong tendency to recruit from certain unis, or alternatively they will try and hire from a bunch of unis in order to evaluate the quality of their students. This makes it quite difficult to say that any uni is better at it than the others.

As for how they help, they will usually receive requests from companies for students to go on placements and they will send these to you. They may also look out for these themselves. For years in industry, they will check that the placement is suitable before allowing you to accept the job offer (or if you accept the job offer and they don't think it's suitable, they'll just say it can't be done as a year in industry). When you're on it you'll be assigned a year in industry tutor who will check in on you at some point during the year.

As a sidenote, and people will disagree with me on this, it's debatable how valuable a placement year is. While it's common sense that it should help, and this is what people in industry will repeat, the stats often say otherwise e.g. graduate salaries will be similar, employment prospects will be similar, Maybe the closest one I come to agreeing with is that people who go on placement years come out with higher grades, however there are compounding variables like maybe people who get yini placements or choose to do yinis have higher grades already. And for engineering you have to consider the 5th year problem, it can be fairly depressing seeing two cohorts graduate and then having to do one more year.

That said, you've got a few years to decide so just take it step by step. Don't focus on it too much but still make sure to go to a uni which allows you to take a placement year (to be fair, not even this is a deal breaker, you can do a year in industry at a uni which doesn't offer it, but you will do it via a year of absence rather than it counting towards your final grade, and you won't get any support from your uni while doing it or applying). Then if you get to 2nd or 3rd year and decide you still want to do a placement year, go for it.

Original post by DreamlinerFinder

If it's engineering, quite a few unis have degrees with a placement inbuilt.

You still have to get the placement though, or otherwise they're usually much smaller placements which also aren't really placements

Reply 3

username3162850

Original post by Ado099

Hey,

As the above poster said, a lot of Universities offer degrees with a placement year, so it is up to you which one you choose!

I'm a Student from Sheffield Hallam, and from my experience, I can say that the University has been a great assistant so far with work placements, voluntary opportunities and future career advice. Many courses at SHU (including Engineering) offer a Year's optional work placement. You will usually get support all the way through your 'year in industry' - especially when you are finding a placement as this can sometimes be a bit tricky!

If you want to find out more about placement years at SHU have a look at the website: https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/academic-departments/sheffield-business-school/study-with-us/employability/placements

Hope this helps.