Hi everyone!

Welcome! Source: University of Surrey Students’ Union

First of all, a BIG welcome to all new students/ freshers!! Welcome to Surrey, you are going to have the best time of your life here (plus a lot of reading and hard work)! I am so excited for all of you… Anyway, I hope everything is okay with uni so far and you have had a fantastic freshers’ week! (I know that was like a month ago…  haha :’) So hopefully, by now you should feel more settled in, and are getting used to life as a uni student. If not, you can always email us (or leave a comment here) if you have any questions or just need some advice in general. 🙂

As promised, I am going to write about my placement experience with you all so that you guys can also have an idea of what it will be like when you are doing yours (I know it can be very different for different courses/ jobs but I am just going to write about the process that I went through before I secured my placement for this blog post)!

I am so sorry that it took me this long, but I was settling in at placement and just getting used to working full-time. Being on placement is so different from being at uni, and you will see why. Anyways,  I am now working as an honorary assistant psychologist at the Royal Hospital of Neuro-disability in Putney, with two other students from my course. I started the job about 3 weeks ago and I finally feel more comfortable with what I am doing and it has gotten easier for me to get up in the morning to go to work. (yay!)

Source: http://www.fmj.co.uk/68130-2/

Would you look at this stunning picture of the hospital! This is the place where I will be spending most of my time at for the next 9 months. In case you are interested and in order to make whatever I am about to say make more sense. Here is a little bit of the background about the hospital: they specialised in neuro-disability and aimed to provide treatments and care for people who, for example, suffered from traumatic brain injuries, people with neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Huntington diseases) as well as providing training in neuro-care and research advances into the science. I am very proud to say that I was very lucky indeed to be able to work with such an incredible organisation and be able to learn from the professionals who work there.

I am sure some of you have already started thinking of getting a placement, if not you have probably started to apply already.  But for those of you who are still not sure whether they want to spend an extra year for placement, I would seriously recommend doing one. Me, myself was also super unsure if whether I wanted to do placement or not. Because frankly speaking, it is definitely a very big commitment as you are putting yourself out in the work field and stepping out of your comfort zone. (I know, so scary!) I mean, you might meet people who will be mean to you or you might have to wake up super early to catch your train to work. Lots of little things to worry about, right? But listen to me,  placement can provide you with the chance to discover what you like to do and what you don’t like to do, you will be given a lot more freedom that you can actually learn and do things outside of the lecture hall and meet new people who will inspire you (and if you are lucky, buy you lunch at work).

So for those of you who are still a bit unsure about “doing it” or “not doing it”. I would say just apply to a few and see how it goes. I mean it is not gonna hurt to apply. You will be surprise how much more you learn about your course and about yourself through the application process. There are mixed opinions on this topic, some might say don’t do it, it is a waste of time or focus on studying, but on the other side of the table some says it is very valuable and prepares you for the real world. So this is only my opinion and I am speaking from my very own experience. (You should decide for yourself at the end of the day.) 🙂

I will be updating my experience here in the blog, but if you have any questions or want me to talk about specific things please let me know. And you can do that by leaving a comment here or emailing us!

Oh and the weather is getting cold, so make sure to stay warm! See you soon! xx