After My Work Placement

I finished my work placement about eight months ago, and over the course of my first semester of my final year at university, I have already begun to see how the skills I acquired proved to be useful.

For my Crime and Terror unit, we were required to do an individual presentation. In the past, we’d always been expected to do group presentations, so this was the first time we had been asked to do something like this alone. Prior to my work placement, I had been worried and fearful of doing an individual presentation in front of a group of people about a chosen subject, however after taking lessons alone throughout all of last year, I felt comfortable giving a presentation on my own. This was a skill that I hadn’t thought I’d be able to work on, since I am often a shy individual, however, being in a situation where I had to do this made this easier for me to do.

Over the course of my placement, I had to be on time and work all day, every day of the week. This has helped in a number of ways since returning to University. For starters, I find it far easier to keep on top of time management, able to be early for lectures and seminars, using my breaks in between lessons practically; doing work or reading books I need for an upcoming seminar. By having spent all last year busy everyday, this made me a far more productive individual, coming into University most, if not all, days of the week, including weekends. This was something I hadn’t done in previous years where I’d often avoided going into university unless I “absolutely needed to”, such as for lectures and seminars, spending the rest of my time at home. This had proved to be an issue when it came to reading and assignments where I had often left it to the last minute.

I have found that doing a work placement year between Second and Final University years was a good choice, as many of my other friends would agree. The year not only gave me a break from education that I had never had, but it also gave me a wider idea of what I see for my future career options and allowed me to build on and develop skills. My placement allowed me to discover not only that I enjoy working within a school or college environment, but also that I have a skill in it. This isn’t something I would have found out without doing a year long placement.

If I were to do University again and given the option of a year placement or a shorter placement, I would choose the year one again, and would suggest others to do so. This had been a useful and enlightening time, giving me lifelong skills and knowledge that I feel can be missed if one doesn’t do a year placement.