Placement info on SLT MSci / MSc

Hi, can anyone give me info on the types of placements for this course please? Night shifts? Hours? What is the most demanding thing to expect please?

I have my children 50/50 with their dad so wondering if I can realistically achieve it. Happy new year!

Reply 1

normaw

Volunteer Section Leader, Clearing and Applications Advisor

@evantej Can you advise on the above? :smile:

Reply 2

evantej

Original post

by Jessiekins88

Hi, can anyone give me info on the types of placements for this course please? Night shifts? Hours? What is the most demanding thing to expect please?
I have my children 50/50 with their dad so wondering if I can realistically achieve it. Happy new year!

I am a SLT and lecturer.

Placements come in all different shapes and sizes depending upon the programme and level of study so I will give a general overview.

Most universities use block placements of different lengths (e.g. 5-12 weeks). These are usually five days per week and full-time hours. The length of placement will dictate how many placements you get (i.e. shorter placements mean you get more placements, longer fewer, maybe even just one per year).

The placements themselves take place within normal working hours for SLTs which is usually 9-5 for the vast majority. Some acute clinicians might work slightly earlier hours (8-4) to coincide with handover meetings etc.. You get the odd person who might work in a very specialist service who works or covers longer hours (say up to 8pm) as part of a multidisciplinary team. But that is exceptionally rare and I have never come across a student who has been placed with one.

As part of the allocation process you state whether you have dependents, travel restrictions, or disabilities etc.. As a placement lead, students with children are in the first/second group who get allocated so I would not be asking you to relocate, travel unreasonable distances etc.. I would be looking to allocate you to a bog-standard 9-5 placement as close to where you live as possible.

In terms of challenges with placements. One of the biggest is completing a split placement where you are potentially in different clinical areas / teams across the week. Another is working in a clinical area you perhaps haven't had teaching on at university yet so you might feel like you've been thrown in at the deep end. Not all universities give 'study' days so some students find that jump to working full-time hours challenging potentially combined with a lengthy commute, financial stressors, just general overload taking in lots of new information etc.. You do sometimes get clinical educators who are more challenging to work with or less conscious about supporting students to have a good work-life balance when you are placement. There is also the perennial issue of being observed / assessed constantly which some students find challenging.

If you have a good support network around you and you treat placement and university like a job then I don't see why you couldn't achieve it. I had a 2/3 year old when I retrained to be a SLT so I have personal experience of this myself.

Any questions just let me know.

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