{"id":208,"date":"2021-01-21T11:54:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T11:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/?p=208"},"modified":"2021-05-21T12:11:18","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T11:11:18","slug":"how-my-placement-at-uwe-has-been-a-transformational-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/how-my-placement-at-uwe-has-been-a-transformational-year\/","title":{"rendered":"How my placement at UWE has been a transformational year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whilst looking to undertake a placement year, I never thought to look at internal roles within the university. I was surprised to find that the Careers and Enterprise Department had recently started recruiting placement students. But it turns out, this is the position that you should really want – to acquire all the skills you learn, the flexibility to embark on your own projects and genuinely transform yourself into a confident individual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I loved my placement year- everything was well balanced whilst I was working simultaneously on two teams – Study Abroad and Placement Management. The teams were very supportive and were accommodating, giving me the freedom to carry out my own projects and collaborate with others- such as promotional and marketing ideas. I was able to develop my employability skills; for instance, enterprise and digital competency whilst creating Sway workbooks, website updates and blogs. It was great to work on a team which was friendly and very inclusive- even though we were temporary\u202fstaff, I had set daily goals; for example, carrying out reporting and sending data to the marketing team on Thursday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Through my own initiative, I got involved with the \u201cMentorship\u201d and \u201cReading Buddies\u201d programmes run by UWE\u2019s Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity team for the charity Ablaze. The mentorship program included developing workshops and learning materials to support students from 12-15 years old in local schools, helping them to understand their options and keep engaged with school and allowed me to work collaboratively with colleagues from other departments at UWE. I mentored for the first time ever \u2013 this was an incredible experience in helping young adults open their eyes to a wide range of careers and skills available. One highlight was running the \u201cminute meditation\u201d and the silent wave in the room as the students genuinely concentrated. The other program focussed on one-to-one reading support to primary school children, helping to achieve Bristol\u2019s ambition of ensuring that all children can read fluently by age 11. This was also a first for me, it felt great to support pupils and help them improve their confidence and ability to converse with someone out of their normal social circle. Their experience deeply resonated with me as I come from a Chinese household where English was rarely spoken and it felt great to give back by helping a child to develop their reading and speaking skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have really improved my transferrable skills and I am really ecstatic to have improved my communication skills especially proactively speaking in public whilst running the stand at \u201cMeet the employers fair\u201d and \u201cPlacement Week\u201d. I had the freedom to attend the wide range of learning and development courses where I also made further connections with wider UWE staff network- this has been amazing! The team were very trusting, especially Frances and Rachel where I was the lead point for the marketing of Placements’ Week, the “Covid-19” student comms also the Study Abroad resources project- these projects all helped me diversify and improve my skills- from tech to communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This placement year has helped me transform into a more confident and enterprising individual, mostly I enjoyed helping my peers embarking on their own careers in search for placements through coordinating weekly drop-ins and answering questions consistently for hours at the \u201cMeet the Employers Fair\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many students have embarked on a placement year within UWE in a range of departments and now the Library, Careers and Inclusivity service. I felt honoured to be one of the first placement students within the Careers and Enterprise department and special thanks to my team for always being wonderfully helpful and flexible.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For anyone looking for a placement opportunity, these are extraordinary transition points in your life \u2013 you transform into a more productive and resilient individual. This is a year to not only gain professional experience but also an opportunity to network and to get involved. Remember to take the initiative and get the most from your placement year! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jennifer Yau, Law with Criminology Student shares her experience of undertaking a placement year within the UWE Careers and Enterprise Department<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,28,29],"tags":[65,19,9,147,146,142,38,143,144,94,53,148,145,20,22,24],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","category-uwe-placement","category-uwe-student","tag-bristol","tag-career","tag-career-journey","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19-2","tag-digital-competency-2","tag-finding-a-placement","tag-industrial-placement-2","tag-law-student-2","tag-marketing","tag-placement-year","tag-study-abroad","tag-uwe-2","tag-uwe-bristol","tag-uwe-student","tag-work-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/careers-enterprise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}