Placement Year

All of our courses are available with a one-year integrated industrial placement, to allow you to put what in to practice what you have learnt in your degree.

Your industrial placement is a great way for you to gain experience in the workplace, try out a career field before you graduate, and try what you have learnt in the real world. You will also be paid - our students earn a minimum of £15,000 for their placement year.

Your year in industry takes place between the second and third years of your degree. The placement is treated as an assessed module, and is recognised as part of the degree with a certificate issued by the University. Any of our courses are available with an industrial placement - and you can choose whether to take a placement in the Summer term of your first year.

During your placement, you would be under the supervision of our Industrial Placements Consultant, Paul Keeler, who will also visit you in the workplace.

What are the benefits of taking a year in industry?

Our students often find that the invaluable experience of their year in industry enhances their academic study and improves their grades. Here are some of the benefits to choosing an industrial placement:

  • It allows you to see a particular area of study from a commercial perspective;
  • It offers the opportunity for you to learn new skills;
  • It prepares you for graduate employment;
  • It can help you build on the skills you need for the workplace, such as communication, problem solving and team work;
  • You can transfer your theoretical knowledge into a real life environment;
  • Students who complete a placement during their degrees often earn more after graduating than those who do not;
  • Academic performance can measurably be seen to improve after a placement;
  • Placement employers often offer graduate employment - it is a great way for you to make contacts and get ahead in the race for jobs after graduation;
  • Placements nurture qualities such as independence, responsibility, pro-activeness and maturity, that employers look for;
  • All placements are paid, so you can start to pay off some of your student loans (minimum salary of £15,000);
  • You can gain a reference from an employer for your CV.

Our placement companies provide our students the opportunity to taste what it's like to work in industry and encourage them to excel in the practical side of their chosen field.

Whilst we cannot guarantee to find students a placement, we do make every effort to identify suitable employers.

Our Industrial Placements Consultant

The Department of Computer Science has a full-time Industrial Placements Consultant, Paul Keeler, who will help you to find a placement that suits you.

Paul is always available to offer advice and guidance on our highly successful placement process. He arranges a first year summer term module which explains the excellent opportunities in taking a placement as well as how to seek the best advice on the composition of your placement Curriculum Vitae (CV). He also offers help in writing CVs and getting the best out of web application techniques for graduate employment. He will also give you advice on interviewing and presenting, to help you secure your placement.

Paul is also there to make sure everything goes well when you are on your industrial placement, and will visit you at least once in your workplace.

The Industrial Placement as part of your degree

The placement is treated as an assessed module that is an accredited part of your degree. We use the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) as an industry benchmark, and you will be expected to demonstrate increased competence consistent with some of the skill defined by the SFIA. You should be able to achieve competency at level 3 for one year, or level 2 for different skills for two six month periods.

Our placements fit in with the placement employers' existing arrangements for planning, training and career development, rather than to replace them. The basic requirements of the module are:

  • the production of concise plans for each student, covering the duration of their industrial placement,
  • the use of relevant external standards in assessing whether the student's career development plan has been achieved, and
  • recording the plans and other relevant information in a learning journal.

What you will learn from your industrial placement

By the end of your year in industry, you will be able to do one or more of the following, all of which are important in the workplace:

  • Understand company strategy.
  • Identify good industrial practice.
  • Identify the personal skills required in the industrial workplace.
  • Communicate effectively with scientists and engineers from other disciplines.
  • Communicate effectively with all people from other disciplines.
  • Understand the basic requirements of project management, viewed from a workplace perspective, by linking academic knowledge to real world situation.
  • Understand the requirements of the users and customers.
  • Understand the industrial engineering process, and react accordingly to work plans and supervisor's instructions, reporting on a regular basis, identifying personal work time schedules and suspense dates.
  • Work supervised and unsupervised.
  • Work as a team member or as an individual.
  • Keep accurate records of industrial activity for personal professional development purposes.
  • Understand the ethical, moral and social issues of the industrial workplace.
  • Have an idea of what career you would like to follow once you graduate.

The Department of Computer Science at the University of York complies with the Quality Assurance Agency Code of Practice on Placement Learning.

Placement fees

A bursary is available in the form of a cash bursary or fee waiver for your placement year. Further details about tuition fees and the bursaries available can be found on the University website.

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