Work Placement Diary: Ben Asher – blog post 5
Student experience 12th February 2020
I am now 5 months into my placement at Scapa, things are still going well and going to work now feels like a normality. Over the Christmas period I had around 2 weeks off, returning to work on the 6th of January. My exam for first semester was on the 24th so I had 3 weeks to make sure I was ready. This was good because it meant I could enjoy my Christmas break without being too worried about revision as I knew I had a fair amount of time before my exam.
Revising whilst working is not easy. Once you get home, probably the last thing you want to do is keep working! I found that I worked more efficiently if I either stayed at work and revised there or went to the local library before heading home. This means that you do not get distracted by other things and then once you are home you do not have to re-motivate yourself. Personally, I prefer my time at home to be spent relaxing and so this schedule worked for me. I kept either the Saturday or Sunday of my weekends free so I could also concentrate some time on revising then. I am a strong believer in making sure you are also spending some time relaxing when it is exam time and when working, I think this is even more crucial, otherwise you will burn out.
As I am working in Ashton under Lyne, Tameside, the day of the exam was much the same as previous years. Of course, if your placement is further afield then you may need to ask to stay at a friend’s house or book a hotel. The university releases the exam timetable as usual and makes it clear that it is your responsibility to make sure you are free for the exam. It is definitely worth ensuring your manager knows that you have exams and that you will possibly need 2 days off to get to Manchester and take the exam. This should be no surprise because they will have been told that university commitments take precedence over placement commitments.
In terms of work, my project is progressing slowly. I am now at the stage of running big trials which take a number of days to test and write up. This stage will continue until Easter, when I will either move to the next stage of the project called the ‘validation stage’ or carry on with the ‘development stage’.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.