Placements that offer real world experience

Why do a placement?

A placement is time spent in a workplace, doing supervised work, during your studies or shortly after graduation.

Whether you have a definite career goal, or are happy to see where your interests take you, real-world work experince will improve your CV and provide you with skills and experience to offer future employers.

Robyn's festival experience

"I found out about the Being Human Festival Placement through a School of English placement talk. Initially, I was uneasy about signing up as I already had quite a few commitments but the job role said that we would be organising events, which really interested me, so I signed up.

During the festival, I supported four of the events. One of these involved people discussing the philosophy of creativity, sharing their creative projects and talking about how artistic endeavours can both help and hinder mental health. It was amazing to hear such diverse opinions contributing to the conversation.

I am so glad I decided to pursue this placement. It has been eye-opening in teaching me how to take initiative in tasks I am not completely confident in. I am still unsure of what I would like to do after my degree, but the placement has provided me with a range of skills that may make me more desirable to future employers." - Robyn, English BA

Read Robyn's full blog article

Laoise's Canadian law placement

"I took the chance to cross over the Atlantic and undergo work experience in a Canadian law firm specialising in personal injury law. All work experience is of great value, however, the chance to work in an overseas environment puts you outside your comfort zone..

I want to pursue law as a future career, so this was a great addition to my work experience. The cases I saw, like motor vehicle accidents and medical injury, showed me the empathy and emotional resilience needed to succeed in such a delicate area of law. I believe my empathetic personality enabled me to get involved with cases that I felt passionate about. Additionally, the cases I worked on, were very present, world issues." - Laoise, Religion, Culture and Ethics BA

Read Laoise's full blog article

Jenna's Fijian summer to remember

"During the summer, I had the opportunity to go to Fiji with Think Pacific and take part in the Youth Empowerment Project. This was partly funded by the Global Placement Grant provided by the Faculty of Arts, without which none of this would have been possible.

Think Pacific is a charity that aims to improve the lives of young people in Fiji. I spent three weeks delivering workshops to the Fijian youth about mental and public health, environment, leadership, business and sport. 

This experience has helped me to grow as an individual and become a more confident person. The project pushed me out of my comfort zone and adapting to these challenging environments, strengthened my resilience." - Jenna, Religion, Culture and Ethics BA

Read Jenna's full blog article

Chloe's Lakeside Arts placement

"In the second year of my degree I took part in an arts administration traineeship with Lakeside Arts. My tasks ranged from setting up for rehearsals and tracking attendance, to organising concerts in the city centre and creating marketing campaigns.

This opportunity highlighted that I have skills in organisation which ended up being very useful for this type of role. I even went on to do a summer placement at Dartington music festival where I built upon what I learnt at Lakeside Arts and continued to build connections to help me with my future career after I finish my degree." - Chloe, Music BA

Read Chloe's full article