Tag: University

University Work Placement Challenges

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

It is the beginning of November and getting dark at 4pm. I find the approach of winter a little more difficult with every year that passes. The people opposite put a spooky figure onto their garden wall for Halloween and every time I look out of the window I shudder. Hopefully he will be put back in a cupboard soon. Somebody asked me today if I am all ready for Christmas which made me feel a little panicked. The answer is resounding no – I have hardly given Christmas a single thought. Humbug.

I should have gone to the gym today but instead had a bacon sandwich for lunch and sat on the sofa watching Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in the wonderful 1951 film African Queen. I actually managed to relax instead of sitting there thinking about all the other things that I should be doing.

My daughter came home from university for one night as she had an interview for her second work placement. She had to prepare a case study, PowerPoint presentation and travel into London. As I have mentioned in an earlier post Heading Back to University , finding these work placements is a stressful process for students and extremely time consuming. They cannot just submit their CV, every position requires a bespoke application. The university is at least a two hour journey from the centre of London which is where many of the companies are based and train travel is expensive, one company did reimburse my daughter the £75 fare. Many of the students apply to multiple companies and it can be confidence destroying if they receive a few rejections. Not finding a placement is not an option on this course so they have to keep on going down the list provided by the university. My daughter attended one interview where she was questioned by a panel of four people then asked to complete some maths papers, the position went to someone else on her course. This time she was up against her friend and housemate. My daughter’s friend was interviewed and gave her presentation but my daughter was only interviewed. When she got home she had to hurriedly pack her bag and head back out as she is finally getting away for a few days. Before she left she received a call from the university placement officer saying she had been offered the position. I could see the tension leave my daughter’s body but she immediately started worrying about her friend who will have to keep on searching.

My mother-in-law has now been in hospital for a month with pneumonia. She cannot go home until her carers have been trained in using a nebuliser. My husband said she appears astonishly calm and we suspect that she is being given some sort of sedative. It’s difficult to believe one of the busiest hospitals in London can spare a bed for this long but the real worrying will start when she goes home and begins the cycle of not letting her carers in or shouting at them so much that they refuse to return. She will be ninety years old tomorrow and her other sons have travelled from their homes abroad to spend some time with her.

So some little wins this week, my daughter has her placement and I managed to enjoy a lazy couple of hours. Hopefully my daughter won’t spend her week in the sun cathing up with her university work and will come back feeling refreshed.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

The spooky, and quite frankly sinister, view from my windows.

Heading Back To University – Part Two

On By samanthaIn FAMILYLeave a comment

It is early February and my daughter is returning to university after eight months at home, six of which she has spent on work placement in London. It has been lovely to have her at home and it almost felt like she’d never been away. When she first came home, in June, she didn’t seem entirely happy to be back. I think she had become used to eating what and when she wanted, coming and going as she pleased and now a little of her independence was gone upon her return.

Because she is doing a Business degree, two years of which involve work placements, she was unable to share a house with the friends she had made during her first year as they were all at university full time and I do think she felt that she was missing out socially. The Business students in Year Two and Year Three share the same student houses for a year. The Year Three Students have it for the first half of the academic year and the Year Two Students for the second half. In my daughter’s case, the contract with the landlady is for twelve students, it is all very complicated. Fortunately my daughter has made good friends with some people on her course and it is these girls she is now sharing with. In fact, this week, that are all heading off to Poland for somebody’s twenty first birthday. 

One of my work colleagues manages some student housing in the city where my daughter attends university and she said they won’t enter into such a complicated arrangement and a friend said they discounted letting their son do a course with a work placement because of the difficulty with finding housing. To be honest, it really hasn’t been a big deal, this particular university offer a lot of courses with work placements and the students always find housing but their choice may be a little limited. 

When I visit my daughter I usually take the train. It takes almost exactly the same amount of time as driving and you just step off the train into the heart of the city. Parking is near-impossible in this particular place as my husband and I found out the first time we drove. There are usually queues to even enter the car parks and, when you do, they are full, and roadside parking is mostly for permit holders only. This time we have to drive because my daughter is taking all her belongings back. Bed linen, pots and pans, clothes, sports equipment etc . I do wonder what students do if they have no access to a car. You can purchase bedding and kitchen sets from the university and arrive with just a suitcase but then all the household stuff will need to be stored somewhere during the summer. Or perhaps students enlist a parent or friend to help them carry it home on public transport. I’m probably overthinking it!

We arrive at the house, which looks small from the outside but the landlady has crammed six bedrooms in. The whole house is freshly panted in white and looks reasonably clean at first glance. My daughter’s is filled with furniture that most charity shops wouldn’t accept and the drawers and wardrobe are covered in grime, inside and out. We have to wipe down everything. There is a frayed extension cord and a filthy mirror which isn’t really a mirror but foil over some hardboard. The staircase down to the kitchen in the basement is a slippery death trap and nobody over 5’9″ can stand up straight in the communal living area. Even crouching, my husband hurts his head on the smoke alarm attached to the already low ceiling. The downstairs floor is uncovered concrete with an oily stain. My daughter is paying a small fortune in rent as are the other students and I feel that the landlady has done the bare minimum make the place comfortable. I am surprised the stairs even passed building regulations. I can see my agitation is annoying my daughter, she doesn’t want her friends to hear my complaining, so I keep quiet.

My daughter has chosen some bed linen from Urban Outfitters so we remove the existing, disgusting mattress cover and replace it with a new one. The room looks better once the bed is made. The wardrobe appears to have come from a 1930s boarding school and has hardly any hanging space but lots of shelves. Somehow we manage to find a home for everything. There are no locks on any of the internal doors, even the two bathrooms which are both downstairs, and my husband is understandably not happy about this. What if one of the other students has a party and my daughter is out. What is to stop anybody rummaging about or even stealing her things. Or worse still, coming into her room uninvited when she is there? He asks her to email the landlady and request locks but my daughter and her friends seem reluctant. 

My husband orders a new extension cable and we take my daughter into town for lunch. We have to keep moving the car throughout the day as the only parking spaces we can find are for a maximum of two hours. After lunch we go to Lidl and buy my daughter some groceries. She buys mushrooms and peas neither of which she will eat at home!

When my daughter was on campus she had everything on her doorstep but now she either has to walk or take the bus. If she just has one lecture it is a lot of effort for an hour. She plays a lot of sport and has said it is a pain going back and forth . Some of the friends she shared accommodation with last year are in the next road which is nice. She will be in this house until June when she will be home for the summer. She will then return to the same house in September until around Easter next year when her second work placement will begin. I spoke to her today and she seems to have settled in happily enough and had just cooked herself some sort of pasta dish with the peas and mushrooms. They must taste different when she cooks them!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Windows on Unsplash

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Heading Back To University – Part One

On By samanthaIn FAMILY1 Comment

Yesterday my husband and I took my daughter back to university to begin her second year of studies. She had been at home for eight months, six of which she spent on a work placement in London. She is doing a four year Business degree with two, six month placements, one at the beginning of Year Two and one at the end of Year Three. My daughter was fortunate to find a work placement fairly quickly but, nevertheless, I think the application process is very stressful for the students. They cannot remain on the course if they fail to find a placement and it has to be a role which is relevant to the degree. It puts them under a lot of pressure at a time when they also have exams to sit.

The Placement Officers at the university released the available opportunities on a spreadsheet and then it was up to the students to send off their CVs and covering letters. Of course they were all applying for the same positions and it was difficult for them to see their friends being offered a placement before themselves. There were one or two roles on the list that we didn’t feel were necessarily right for my daughter, we didn’t want her to work for a company that didn’t even have a functioning website and was located in a not particularly safe area for example. I assume the university do their due diligence when sending these opportunities to the young students. A number of the placements were overseas, quite a few in Germany, so these were ideal for students with proficient language skills. There was one placement right in our town which would have been lovely and convenient but another student secured that.

Nearly all of the employers required online applications to be submitted, most of which take at least an hour to be completed. The covering letters of course have to be tailored to each position, it is all very time consuming. The interviews were all online, most students had at least two interviews for any role they were considered for.  My daughter was fortunate to be reasonably well paid for her placement but, by the end of the application process, some students accepted unpaid positions. As we live within easy commuting distance of London my daughter moved back home but students who live further afield also had to arrange and pay for accommodation near their temporary workplace. Living in any city is enormously expensive and I imagine it was difficult to make last-minute arrangements. I know all of my daughter’s friends were hugely relieved when they had secured their placements. 

I bought my daughter a couple of trouser suits for her placement, one from Next and one from Top Shop (still available at ASOS) but she didn’t wear either of them. The dress code in the office of the huge corporation she was working for was supposed to be Business Casual but it was actually extremely casual. My daughter, not someone who is particularly interested in clothes, wore some three quarter length trousers from Zara most days paired with a little shell top or cotton blouse. She just wore loafers on her feet. When it got colder she bought some wide leg trousers from Pull & Bear and wore a slim fit jumper on top. She said lots of people wore trainers in the office. Things have certainly changed since I worked in The City in the 90s.

For the first couple of weeks my daughter had to go into the office every day which, even with a 17-25 railcard is a huge expense. After the initial training period she was able to work from home for three days a week. She said there were days when she was the only one in her department who had gone in and that some people never seemed to put in an actual appearance at the office. 

My daughter was really well looked after during her placement and learned a lot. There were three other students from her course working in the same department. She said that the staff were very welcoming and patient if anybody needed any guidance. The students were expected to work hard and my daughter often had a long list of tasks to complete. They did a little bit of socialising after work but not as much as they would at university. I think it was a very positive experience for her. The company said they were delighted with my daughter’s performance and were sorry to see her leave. Unfortunately she can’t go back to the same place for her next placement so we will have to start the application process all over again.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Windows on Unsplash