Monday, December 9, 2013

Industrial Placements - how do they work?

The second year students have been attending a series of presentations from construction companies to focus their minds on their industrial placement which will take place during their third year. The companies who are making the presentations are also offering placements - which leads to the question: exactly how do students go about securing their placement? I had a chat with Michael Hill (Director of UG Programmes) and Andy King (Placements and Partnerships Administrator)...

Andy King (on the right in the grey shirt) at the Real Estate and Construction Careers Fair in October 2013

'It is the responsibility of the student to obtain appropriate employment for their placement year, but we do provide a lot of help for students: access to information about potential employers, vacancy adverts, contact with final year students who have just returned from placement (at the Industrial Placements Fair), the Real Estate and Construction Careers Fair, company presentations and visits as well as assistance and advice with job applications, writing a CV and interview techniques. If a student is finding it difficult to get a suitable placement, we can offer specific help and support to see why this is happening. The industrial placement is the start of the continuing education process of learning by experience and we encourage students to enhance their experience by observing and questioning what is happening around them.'

Andy also makes sure that students going out on placement are fully briefed before they go and is on hand to provide support and advice during the placement, as needed. And the support continues when students are out on placement - each student receives at least one visit at their place of work from a member of academic staff and all students are invited to the Industrial Placement Day where they give a short presentation on their placement so far.

Following the placement year, students are asked to answer questions about their experience and how it has benefited them - take a look at some of our student profiles. We also ask employers for their side of the story in the profiles of employers.

In was good to see some of our graduates coming back to make presentations on behalf of their employers - here are the companies who've been in so far this year:

Mace 

The Mace presenters - all graduates from Oxford Brookes (left to right: Lucy Sapcote (2012), Roston O'Gorman (2011), Simon Yallop (2012) and Tom Price (2010) 






Fluor


Presentation from Fluor











Beard Construction

Presentation from Beard Construction

The presentation series was completed with visits and talks from The Clarkson Alliance and Quinn London.

Industrial placements are a compulsory component of the undergraduate degrees (BSc) Construction Project Management and (BSc) Quantity Management and Surveying - for more information take a look at our website.

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