08 Mar Swansea University Engineering Placement scheme
The placement scheme for engineering disciplines at Swansea University is a year in industry embedded in the students’ curriculum. They undertake their placement in the penultimate year of their studies, which brings near-graduate-level recruits to their host companies.
The placement scheme is entirely hosted by the company based on full time employment for a minimum duration of 40 weeks. The students need to submit reports to the University but do not need time off for lectures. All assessment is based on the Engineering Council’s UK-SPEC framework. This enables us to have a flexible mode of assessment based on professional development in the workplace, deployable to all engineering disciplines. The use of the UK-SPEC also gives students a preview of how to progress professionally beyond graduation, it enables a meaningful discussion between placement students and experienced engineers and has been a motivation for students to keep progressing throughout the placement. You can read the short case study about Mazen’s placement at Scottish Power below.
The placement scheme is cost-effective for host companies. It is a smart way to plan expansion as a year-long interview, and it is a fantastic way to support the next generation of enthusiastic aspiring engineers.
Setting up a placement does not need to be arduous. The company needs to ensure that they have the budget to meet the legal requirements for remuneration of a full-time employee (maybe a little more to attract top students?). The team has experience to help to communicate with our students in the recruitment phase. We have experience of completing the process with micro-enterprises and multi-national companies alike. If you would like to recruit a placement student, please contact us at eng.employability@swansea.ac.uk.
You can find more information about the placement scheme at https://www.swansea.ac.uk/engineering/year-in-industry/.
You can also contact us to participate in our employer talk series or employability events to raise awareness of your company among students. We are also organising an employer event for our students focusing on sustainable engineering on Wednesday 24th March. We invite industrial participation to present your activities to our students and any opportunity for placements. After the presentations, we also invite you to participate in a panel session focused on skills for the renewable energy sectors where a discussion and exchange with the students will aim to highlight what the challenges are in the renewable energy sector and how prospective engineers can develop he right skills to start their careers.
Do students really contribute? Mazen’s placement at SP Energy Networks
During his placement at Scottish Power Energy Networks (Llandudno), Mazen worked on several planning and service delivery projects. He contributed to the company’s growth and innovation by bringing new skills to the office. He developed a fault and incident response tracker to keep response times to a minimum. The app automates alerts to the right people and documents the response, triggers escalation and alternative contacts if no incident response is registered and has been put to the test to maintain power in critical infrastructures during the Covid-19 crisis. Mazen was also involved in the grid analysis to distribute locally produced energy across Anglesey. This is part of an on-going re-thinking of the energy consumption and production patterns. On one hand, energy production is decentralised from power stations to wind turbines and solar panels at vastly differing production capacities (domestic to offshore wind and solar farms). On the other, electric vehicles and the drive to reduce fossil fuel energy consumption put a greater demand on the grid. Mazen’ analysis supports the planning activities to future-proof EV charging services expected by the consumers without jeopardising the grid integrity.
Mazen shared many of his achievements on LinkedIn throughout his placement.