If you know me in person, you should know that I’ve been looking for placement since the start of 2015. In my case, I was originally on the 3 years programme and decided to change to 4 years (with placement) during the start of my second year. In this post, I’ll be sharing what I gone through while looking for placement and hope it can help people who are facing similar situations!

 

To begin with, it is definitely NOT a wise choice to choose 3 years programme if you need a visa as you’ll need to extend it if you decided to do placement year later! So if you are not sure whether you want to do placement or not, APPLY FOR 4 YEARS PROGRAMME! You can always change back to 3 years easily after discussing with your faculty.

 

First, understand the cost and the reasons why you want to do a placement.

– Can you get similar work experiences from a 2-3 months summer intern? Or you really want to get into the industry for 1 year?

– Is extending for a year okay for you and your parents?

Some parents prefer their children to graduate from university as soon as possible, that’s why you’ll need to discuss with your family before making decisions.

– Tuition fees for placement year is 1075 for this year (15-16).

 

Second, think about what kind of placement you want to do

– Think about your ideal future career and apply the related field?

For example sciences student might want do researches in lab; hospitality students might want to work in hotels- as long as it’s approved by your faculty.

– Paid or unpaid?

You’ll need to commit to your work for a least 30 weeks (unpaid) or 46 weeks (paid). If you took an unpaid placement, you can work for 4 days a week (or equivalent) and do part-time work to support your living. However, everything should be agreed between you and the company.

– Where?

Do you want to work in the UK? Or back to your home country? Or do you want to work in particular countries?

 

The reasons why I would like to take placement year is because I find it difficult to look for summer internships in Hong Kong if you couldn’t attend the interviews in March/April/May. Also, I am not 100% sure what I want to do in the future and I believe working for 1 year allows me to understand myself better. However, my parents do want me to pay the extra cost (tuition fee, accommodation, flights, etc) and therefore I know I will only apply paid placement. Yet, I actually cheated and …… I’ll let you know in the next entry!:P