Placements

Students on an Ecology placement with the Atlantic Whale Foundation in Tenerife

"There's no substitute for practical experience. Two thirds of employers believe gaining practical experience is the most valuable step you can take to improve your employment prospects. Practical experience brings advantages that nothing else can match." (Source: 2010 CBI/EDI Education and Skills survey).

Placements are a really important experience for our students. Therefore, we offer an opportunity on all our degree programmes including optional forensic placements. In order to assist your arrangements, we have an in-school Placement Officer and we regularly advertise any vacancies on our internal placements and careers website MyCareerHub.

External agencies, alumni and the school have made several grants available this year. They are intended to help encourage students to undertake a worthwhile placement experience as part of their ongoing professional development.

Our students have enjoyed placements all over the world and have an excellent reputation amongst employers. They return with exciting reports giving an insight into their personal development and future employability within the area of their studies. The contacts they make whilst on their placement have led to some very successful and interesting networking opportunities. Students can experience placements within all sectors; charitable organisations, local authorities, public and private sector organisations.

Students don't have to go abroad to find a good placement, some of the most valuable experiences are to be had within the UK and indeed sometimes in the student's home town. Bournemouth University is in a prime position to capitalise on the multitude of opportunities the Jurassic Coast offers, for example Dorset Wildlife Trust in Kimmeridge Bay with its ecological and geophysical coastline.

We hold a database of nearly 900 organisations who have acted as hosts for our students in previous years. This list grows each year as students discover new exciting projects to work with. We are extremely proud of our student achievements with placements from every continent, as far north as Iceland and south as the Falkland Islands, experiences from panda breeding in China to designing a new road traffic system in Berkshire, archaeological excavations with local authorities and funded European sites.