• I wanted relevant work experience for my degree

• I wanted a break from formal studies, I thought it would improve my graduate prospects

• I wanted to develop on-the-job skills to help the rest of my degree

• As an international student

• I felt this would be beneficial in case I want to get a  job/visa sponsorship after graduation

Using other recruitment resources (e.g. RateMyPlacement, Gradcracker, Milkround, TargetJobs)

What I liked the most about my placement was my team. They have trusted me fully and treated me as one of their colleagues, not only an intern. The first project I took was about internal Christmas promotion and it has reached employees in 11 countries and their friends and family. After this project, I worked on rebuilding the whole application in different programming languages from the planning stage. Another project that I truly enjoyed is working on an application used in Argentina. I arranged meetings to gather requirements, added new functions and conducted end-user testings. When my improvements were in production, I felt proud and thankful for my team giving me an opportunity to work directly with a colleague and go through the whole process by myself. I have learned so much not only in skills but also in professional manners and feel much more confident than I was before placement.

• Developed technical skills

• Developed professional skills

• A wider professional network

• Friends through your workplace/ other Placement students

• Awareness of the roles I do/do not want to do in the future

• Experience of living somewhere different

Sohyun has had the opportunity to not only learn about new development languages and technologies but also put them into practice in real, working projects. She has grown in self-confidence and improved other skills such as communication and teamwork. The contribution has ranged from working on key software development projects, helping our team deliver business value through developing innovative applications, sharing knowledge of findings and research with the technical team and volunteering at internal events.

I strongly recommend undergraduate students to go on a placement, as they teach you pieces of knowledge that you cannot learn from lectures.