Year-long placements
If you really want to immerse yourself in a period of work experience to gain a thorough insight in a career area, a specific company or industry, a year-long placement will be right for you.
If your course doesn't offer an integrated placement, you can still undertake a year placement at the end of your penultimate year - find out how below.
Connecting with employers paid off
After talking to managers in different departments, sitting in on meetings and doing some work for them, I discovered a new area of the business I hadn’t heard of before.
Read about Louise's placements
Placement years: are they worth it?
You get given much more responsibility as a Placement Year student. I’m managing a team of 50 aircraft engineers and I will leave with an industry-recognised qualification.
Read five students' stories on our blog
What are year-long placements?
Integrated industrial placements (also know as a Year in Industry)
Placement years take place in between the penultimate and final year of your degree and are typically aligned to your field of study.
The courses offering these placements include: bioscience, chemistry, computer science, engineering, neuroscience, pharmaceutical science and physics.
Optional Placement Year
If your course does not have an integrated placement or study abroad element, you can opt to undertake a placement at the end of your penultimate year of study.
The placement can be aligned to your degree discipline or it can be in an unrelated field that is linked to an area of career interest.
Optional Placement Year
How long are the placements?
The length of your placement can vary from nine to 13 months; this is negotiated with your individual placement employer. Placements can start from July onwards, and must be competed by the September of the following year.
The placement year is an assessed component of your degree programme and it will be recognised on your degree transcript. As you will remain a registered student for the duration of the year, you will retain access to all university support services.
You will be allocated a tutor who will maintain monthly remote contact with you and conduct at least one in-person visit to your workplace.
Why do a year-long placement?
A year-long placement will help you to:
- develop skills like team working, presentation, project management, negotiation and organisational skills
- work in and learn about a profession or a sector over a significant period of time
- gain a better idea about occupations by learning more about what you enjoy
- increase your chances of successful employment after university by gaining the skills graduate employers are looking for.
What's on offer at Nottingham?
A range of courses offer an integrated year-long placement that is advertised in the university prospectus.
Students will have started at the University on one of these courses or have the option to transfer on to one of these existing degree programmes. Examples include computer science, engineering, Nottingham University Business School. Speak to your school if you wish to pursue a transfer to one of these courses.
Students on a degree course that does not have an integrated placement can undertake the optional Placement Year. A growing number of students from a wide range of degree programmes now do this each year with organisations across the UK and overseas.
Optional Placement Year
Where can I look for year-long placements targeted at Nottingham students?
Employers looking to recruit Nottingham students and graduates advertise their placement year vacancies on MyCareer. Here's just a selection of the latest vacancies.
Please be aware that study abroad, compulsory year abroad, optional placements/internships and integrated year in industry opportunities may change at any time for a number of reasons, including curriculum developments, changes to arrangements with partner universities or placement/industry hosts, travel restrictions or other circumstances outside of the university's control. Every effort will be made to update this information as quickly as possible should a change occur.