6 Reasons For Doing A Placement Year

Placement years are becoming increasingly popular. Almost all well known companies now offer them in various departments. Small specialized companies are also starting to offer them by partnering up with Universities. If you're a second-year undergraduate, you're probably either beginning to apply for a placement year, or you're already in the middle of applying.

Placement years allow you to explore potential career paths, boost your CV and network. Industry and University placement schemes are well established around the globe meaning you could work locally or on the other side of the world.

In this post I'm going to be telling you the reasons why you should undertake a placement year and the benefits of doing one.

Reason 1 - A year long experiment

One of the best things about a placement year is that it lasts around a year. Most placement "years" are 9-12 months long. Why is this so good? It gives you the chance to try something without having to commit long-term. If you have a great time that is excellent! If you don't like it don't worry it'll be over soon.

So what can you experiment with in this year?

Location is a big factor and with placement years available around the country as well as the globe this could be the perfect time to live somewhere new for a year. Your University will also support you during this year so it can be a great chance to explore living and working abroad.

This year will also give you the chance to learn about the different job roles available in your industry. If you are unsure about which role you'd like to try you can apply to placement years that have rotations, allowing you to explore different roles in the company such as R&D, project management, and procurement.

The most important thing is to challenge yourself! After completing your placement you'll have learnt a lot about yourself and a lot about what you would like to do after you graduate!

But don't worry you'll still have one more year at uni.

Reason 2 - More employable

Competition for placement roles is fierce but no where near as fierce as they are for graduate roles. Completing a placement year will make you more employable after graduating, as recent research shows employers prefer graduates who have industry experience over first class degrees.

They are a great addition to your CV especially when employers are comparing you to another graduate with similar grades as yourself. If you choose to apply for jobs which are similar to your placement role you'll also find it infinitely easier to talk to interviewers as you'll have a much better understanding of the job.

This was certainly the case for me when a recruiter showed me the job description for my current role, Simulation Engineer at Rockwell Automation. I remember reading the bullet points on the description and thinking that I've done every single one of them during my placement year. The interview was a breeze and I was offered the job 15 minutes later!

Reason 3 - Learn skills you wouldn't learn as part of your degree

A placement year is a great opportunity to learn skills that you wouldn't learn during your degree. These can be soft skills or technical skills depending on where you are working. The skills you learn may not even be related to the job but more due to you living a different life style.

Not all placements are the same so it is important you find one that will allow you to develop in the areas most important to you. I chose to do my placement year at ANSYS, the industry leader in engineering simulation software. My two main reasons were so I could improve my ANSYS simulation skills, this would be useful for my final year and for most engineering roles after graduating, and so I could learn how to code.

Coding is a skill set all people should look to gain as most roles will involve some coding or data analysis. At ANSYS I was able to learn how to use Visual Studio for coding and debugging, GitHub for code management and how to code in C+ and Fortran. At university the most I had coded was 15 lines of MATLAB, at ANSYS I learnt how to code on the job helping to develop software with a codebase of over 3 million lines!

Reason 4 - Improve skills before your final year

Some of the skills you'll learn will help you out massively during your final year. Most of these skills will likely be soft skills that you didn't even realize you picked up. Things like time management, teamwork, decision making and project management. These will all make your final year in University a bit less stressful.

Depending on your placement you may also be able to use some of those technical skills you picked up for your final year as well. At ANSYS I was able to access thousands of pounds worth of advanced training material and learnt way more than I could in a year at University. This allowed me to pick a harder and more interesting final year project: Parametric CFD Study of Heat Transfer Using Plate Fins within Electric Ducted Fans for Future Aerospace Propulsion.

I also applied my new ANSYS knowledge as part of my group project, Formula Student, where I used pervasive simulation to design our race cars side pods.

When I started my placement year at ANSYS I could only carry out one type of basic simulation but by the end of it I had learned how to use different solvers and how to use them with advanced simulation practices to speed up design.

Reason 5 - Trial your career

Your placement year will hopefully be in a position that you would hope to have after university, in an industry that interests you and related to your degree. As well as a placement year showing you what you want to do after university, it may also show you what you don't want to do after university.

If you are a little unsure about what it is you want to do after university; a placement or even some work experience will be the best way for you to find out and decide whether the career path you are pursuing is for you.

Reason 6 - Work life

You'll most likely find your placement a walk in the park! Only having to work 9-5 and then switching off and relaxing for the rest of the day. You'll also never have to work weekends, have paid holiday and even get paid when you're ill!

No more late nights cramming in revision material, no more frantically trying to meet your deadline, no more trying to decipher what your lecturer has written on the white board.

All-in-all I'd say the actual work part of work is easier and more stable than the work part of uni. Of course the social life of uni is much better and one thing I learned from my placement is that I want to work somewhere with lots of people the same age as me.

Overall a placement is a good guide of what to expect once you graduate.

You can also expect a competitive salary in the region of £15,000 to £25,000 !!!!!