Be fully prepared for an increasingly competitive job market and develop the skills, knowledge and experience to be highly desirable to future employers.
Work experience as part of your degree benefits you in many ways; from business-related experience to helping decide your future career, increased practical skills to a professional reference from your placement company. All of this will help you get ahead of the competition when you graduate. Some of our placement students have also been offered graduate roles with their placement companies. Placement years are an option for most of our undergraduate degrees, explore the possibilities.
Postgraduate students can also benefit from a placement as part of the masters degree. If you're taking a postgraduate course with us, the placement will be 1-2 trimesters.
Read our students' short placement case studies to find out why a placement is an important part of your studies.
As a full-time undergraduate student, you can undertake a placement as part of your degree, giving you invaluable business experience, the opportunity to apply and enhance your skills, both old and new, while creating lasting professional relationships. You'll gain confidence and motivation, and come back with ideas for your dissertation. It can also help you achieve a better class of degree in your final year. Read our FAQs and watch Shannon's experience to confirm why a placement year is right for you.
Postgraduate students also benefit from the option of a placement to help develop real-life experience as part of their masters degree. We've put together some FAQs to make sure a postgraduate placement is right for you. Read our FAQs for Postgraduate placement.
Placements are not guaranteed and the responsibility of finding a placement rests with you. Like applying for any job, you should be prepared to apply for many different roles to ensure you secure a placement. Undergraduates and Postgraduates undertaking a placement will be required to pay a reduced fee of £1,250 to ARU for your placement. You are responsible for any additional costs incurred in relation to your placement such as travel costs, laptops/mobile phones, clothing, materials etc. To ensure you are prepared for work in industry, you are required to pass all your taught modules before undertaking a placement.