Adding a placement year to your university degree may initially seem intimidating, but it can provide significant advantages.
Hear from Melanie about exactly how to pinpoint the best university 'FOR YOU'...
When you're looking at university degrees, the idea of adding a year for a placement can seem daunting.
It can seem like you might end up a year behind other people.
Actually, in the grand scheme of things, having that extra year of placement might give you experience on your CV, but when you do graduate, gives you a significant advantage.
There are three ways that it does this.
1. Experience
One, it gives you experience of the workplace.
It helps you understand what kind of working environment you might like or dislike.
It might help you think about what you want to specialize in, in your third year of your degree. It might help you think about whether you want to go into a masters. You can learn from of yourself.
2. CV Credibility
Secondly, it gives you something for your CV because actually if you look at job descriptions that are out there for graduate level jobs and beyond, The chance of more than a line or two being taken up by the academic qualification you need for that job is pretty small.
In a one page or two-page job description, 90% of what you're reading is going to be about the qualities and skill builds and competencies that they are looking for from candidates.
A year's placement gives you a great opportunity to be all of those and have something to evidence it with on your CV.
3. Networking & Relationships
Third reason why a placement might be good for you - you can build your network.
You never know, that placement might actually turn into your first graduate job when you finish university.
