Placements

Placements are a great opportunity to find out more about jobs that you are considering as well as gain some practical work experience for your CV. 

Opportunities for Placements

Summer Work Placements - Short-term placements that take place over summer. These are often aimed at students who will be returning to their final year and it is a chance for you to find out more about a company and for them to find out what you are really like before offering you a place on a graduate training scheme. Placements are usually advertised and big employers will often also be at the Placements and Internships Fair run by the Careers and Employability Service. 

Summer Lab Placements - Research placements that take place in labs around campus, sometimes with funding, sometimes without. They are generally 6-8 week projects and enable you to get useful practical experience in the labs. The best way to find out if these are available is to speak to members of academic staff in the individual schools.

Nottingham Internship Scheme - A good opportunity for students to get work experience in small-medium sized enterprise (SMEs), charities or social organisations. Since these are roles in smaller organisations it often involves more responsbility in the role as well as the opportunity to see more areas of the business and get a broader view of how it runs. There are a range of roles advertised throughout the year which are exclusively available to Nottingham students.

Find out more about the Nottingham Internship Scheme

Optional Placement Year - Students can apply for a year-long placement as part of a named degree. This can be a placement in any sector so it does not to be specifically aligned to Natural Sciences. Past students have taken placements with EMEC Ecology (Ecologist), Accenture (Business Analyst), Reckitt Benckiser (R&D Operations).  

Students are responsible for finding their placement but there is support available through the Careers and Employability Service and some subject teams. Once you have secured a placement you transfer onto the BSc/MSci Natural Sciences with Placement Year programme.

While you are out in industry you have the full support and a placement tutor will be in touch regularly and will come out to visit you to see how everything is going. At the end you submit a reflective journal of your experience.