The Student Room Group

What's more beneficial - Placement Year or Year Abroad?

Here are my pro's/con's for each:

For/against placement year:
> Earn a bit of money - around 15-20k is pretty good for great experience
> Get lots of experience, helps you stand out and puts you closer to career path
> Could be boring and less fun than year abroad
> Won't be able to experience a different culture abroad

For/against year abroad:
> Get to go to another top university abroad like Columbia, UCLA or Pennsylvannia
> Experience culture and enjoy yourself
> Can be more costly than placement year and won't earn anywhere near as much
> Good experience for CV?????? (this I don't know)

What would be better to do?
1 year work experience at a top firm (stay in UK) or 1 year (year abroad) at a top US university?
Reply 1
Reply 2
Original post by J-SP
Tough to say which one is better - they will both look great on a CV.

Neither are going to harm you in terms of prospects after graduating. But it is ultimately going to come down to personal preferences.

If you are more career focused at this stage, know the area you want to work in when you graduate, then go for the placement year. If you are unsure and are still trying to work that out, then the year abroad at another uni might be a better idea.

However if living abroad is a must have, then the year abroad otpion obviously wins out.

However, there is a middle (if somewhat difficult) ground of doing your industrial placement abroad. Many people work abroad for their work placement years and I have known some to do that in the US (is possible given the intern visa process) but its just finding a job that can be trickier. Europe tends to be a lot easier, but there is nothing stopping you for working abroad for a year and having the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the response :smile:.

I know the industry I want to get into, but I don't know what sort of career I want within the industry. I would love a year abroad, but the money of course is more preferable than just studying.

I've done a bit of research about working abroad and don't think it's possible for my course, but thank you for the sugestion.

Tough decision I have to make.. :frown:
I went on a study abroad and it was ****ing awesome in fact I’d love to live there one day. It had its ups and downs: I went on loads of nights out, went travelling etc but the studying part didn’t go too well. 50% got you a D-, two 3 hour exams for each module plus homework and there weren’t seminars just big lectures.

Whether you should go or not I’d say get a paid placement and use the money to go travelling around USA

Imo my experience abroad doesn’t add anything groundbreaking to my CV remember loads of people do it
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by J-SP
What course are you studying and what kind of industry are you looking to get into?

Ah forgot my login details..

I want to do economics and get into the finance industry. Here's what's making it tough though is that I don't know if I want to get into IBanking or work as a financial consultant (i.e work as a consultant and then specialise). Both are quite different industries, but both encompass finance. Top consulting firms/IB's like experience, but they also like brand name and going to the US could help, but so could 1 years worth of experience. :frown:
Reply 5
Original post by Dominoes
I went on a study abroad and it was ****ing awesome in fact I’d love to live there one day. It had its ups and downs: I went on loads of nights out, went travelling etc but the studying part didn’t go too well. 50% got you a D-, two 3 hour exams for each module plus homework and there weren’t seminars just big lectures.

Whether you should go or not I’d say get a paid placement and use the money to go travelling around USA

Oh sweet - where did you go if you don't mind me asking.

I was thinking that, about going travelling after - how hard is it to get some sort of visa to go travelling in the US?
Reply 6
Original post by J-SP
Its not impossible to do a year abroad on a work placement in those areas, they will just be very competitive, like they are in the UK.

Why not apply to both? Surely at this stage you don't have to make any hard or fast decision and could then choose later on.

I wanted to apply to both, but it would take up 2/3 UCAS options, leaving me 3/2 spaces left.

So I would have to enter on UCAS: Economics, Economics with placement year and Economics with year abroad for one university. Reasons being is that Economics with placement year/year abroad are more competitive than Economics so I don't want to risk losing my place there and you can't switch to one or the other for some reason. So you can't switch from Economics to Economics with placement year/year abroad.

Applying to all three would prevent me from applying to other universities. Despite that though, I could always pick later on in the year so I just send in UCAS now and then make up my decision later. :smile:
Original post by commie2
Oh sweet - where did you go if you don't mind me asking.

I was thinking that, about going travelling after - how hard is it to get some sort of visa to go travelling in the US?


I went to a uni in Montreal Canada. The visa stuff is something you’d have to find out yourself. I suggest looking at North America tours first which you could do after paid placement. In addition you’d probably be broke at the end of year abroad. Imo I’d do a paid placement and use the money to go travelling properly
Original post by Commies
Here are my pro's/con's for each:

For/against placement year:
> Earn a bit of money - around 15-20k is pretty good for great experience
> Get lots of experience, helps you stand out and puts you closer to career path
> Could be boring and less fun than year abroad
> Won't be able to experience a different culture abroad

For/against year abroad:
> Get to go to another top university abroad like Columbia, UCLA or Pennsylvannia
> Experience culture and enjoy yourself
> Can be more costly than placement year and won't earn anywhere near as much
> Good experience for CV?????? (this I don't know)

What would be better to do?
1 year work experience at a top firm (stay in UK) or 1 year (year abroad) at a top US university?


Definitely abroad

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