Finding My Short Work Placement
When I initially heard about the Short Work Place unit at the beginning of my second year, I found the idea very daunting. The phrase ‘short work placement’ sounded intense and difficult particularly as I don’t know what job I want to do, so which placement do I do?
I thought about my feelings of dread and realised, all the other students taking this unit were in the same position as me, and previous students had done it, so I could too.
I found my placement very quickly, I had already chosen the placement I wanted within an hour of the lecture about it. This was surprising to me due to my perceived difficulty of the task, but at the same time, it wasn’t as in a way I took the easy route to avoid stress, signing up for the placement advertised in the lecture.
What especially interested me was the UOM Psychology third-year student who had worked with ReachOut the year before. She explained that she was in our place the year prior and this really helped with my feelings about the whole process. She spoke about the great experience she had and how she was now a project leader, organising activities for the whole group. Thinking ahead by seeing someone else who had already completed this task really helped me to put things into perspective and believe that the work placement was not a big deal, and achievable.
I feel that my decision was primarily based on avoiding a stressful situation, and, upon reflection, I think I should have considered more options rather than choosing the first available placement. Despite this, I think I can still see the process of finding a work placement a success, as I didn’t leave it until the last minute and sorted it out as soon as I could. I think it was beneficial that I was organised with my work placement and took the advice to not wait around for the perfect placement.
Although I think it would have been beneficial to choose a work placement that was related to a relevant career path, I still didn’t have anything in mind so this wouldn’t have been an option.
I plan to do another work placement in the future. With no deadline on when I should complete it, I can have time to think about the type of placement I want to do. This will be more effective for my future career if I have more concrete plans on what I want to do and can build up relevant experience. This means the first step is figuring out what I am interested in, rather than jumping at the first opportunity. From this experience, I have learnt that all experience is good experience, but it’s great if it is relevant, so that is my goal!
