Hello there!
I’m Ria and I’m in my final year studying BSc Human Resources and Business Management. I recently completed my placement year in the HR field, where I was able to work in different HR departments and get the insight which helped me to be sure this is what I want to do for my career.
In this blog, I will be sharing my academic and career-related tips, guidance and inspiration to help you on with your own path!
Unlocking Your Placement Potential: What You Can Do!
A placement year is a great opportunity for students to gain fantastic experiences that they didn’t experience before. I believe placement year will help you develop 2 main aspects of your life:
- Being personal growth, during placement year you will have a chance to gain confidence, independence and a chance to understand more about yourself as in this path you will gain new experiences that will build your personality.
- Another main thing you will gain is career growth regardless of what path you choose to take for your placement year, it will provide you with new skills and enhance your current skills as this will be your hands-on experience in a chosen area of placement.
You can see placement year as a more focused gap year, where you have a chance to explore a new field or a chance to work on your dream career as well as a chance to explore a new city or country.
Quick Things to Know:
- You can choose more than one experience to do in your placement year such as studying abroad, voluntary work or opening a business; I will talk in more depth later on in this blog.
- Support is available for you before and during you start your placement year, you will not be left alone. Contact for Placement Coordinators: https://www.aston.ac.uk/careers/contact-us
- You will have the assignment to complete alongside your placement by Aston, the assessment information will be provided to you by the placement lead professor. Not to worry, a placement tutor will be assigned to you for support, alongside other resources to support you.
- The University recognises the importance and transformational nature of the Placement Year by the award of 120 Stage P credits, contributing 10% to the student’s final degree calculation.
Your Options:
If you have a clear aim for your placement year, you can strategically choose the type of placement that aligns with your aim, however, if you’re uncertain about what you want to achieve during this period, there is no need to worry. The world of placement offers many opportunities and you will undoubtedly discover an option which is best for you. Here are your flexible placement options:
- Follow the normal route and do placement for a whole year in one organisation.
- You can do more than one placement with shortened placements that must have 5 weeks of duration in each organisation, in this way, you are able to gain experience in different fields that will help you explore your choices after graduation.
- Study abroad for a whole year or one semester.
- A mixture of study abroad and work placement.
- For placement year you don’t have to only do placement or internship roles but you can do a job too.
- Start your own business known as Enterprise placement (this needs to be approved by BSEEN).
Remember that before doing any of this for your placement, you will need to get approval from the university to know if you can do this for placement year as there are requirements for placement such as minimum hours weekly that you must do, how long each opportunity must be to be added on a placement year or if the company that you want to go in passes standard requirements of the university and much more.