Year 2 Placement: Work Experience
In the second year, all undergraduate Geography students are able to choose an optional module to undertake a work placement for one day a week for ten weeks with a local organisation. The work placement module provides students with an opportunity to develop their professional skills by spending time with an employer.
Students spend a minimum of 70 hours working under the direct supervision of the employer giving them an insight into the professional working environment and learning how their studies transfer into the real world of work. The assessment takes the form of a reflective learning report and academic poster focused on a specific element of their placement.
Our placement partnerships include - Lincolnshire County Council, OpenPlan, Lincolnshire Community and Volunteer Service, Whisby Nature Reserve, East Midlands Ambulance Service, Knights Plc, East Mercia Rivers Trust, Delta Simons.
Bart Hill - Environment Agency
During my placement, I mainly worked within the Water Resource Planning and Water Quality Team which oversees the usage and contamination of water as well as the abstraction of water from the Lincolnshire area. My work involved the South Forty Foot Catchment, using GIS software called Easimap to map abstraction points along the foot. My second project was to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a constructed wetland in these locations. During my placement, I was able to give two major presentations which helped me to develop my personal speaking and time management skills. I also used a variety of software during the placement including Easimap, Excel and EDRMS, and developed a lot of problem-solving and critical skills.
Environment Agency
Megan Keech - East Midlands Ambulance Service
My placement with the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) was fantastic. I really enjoyed myself and found it interesting. It was quite eye opening to get an insight into EMAS and how this relates to Geography, as the research they are doing is extremely important. I am currently working with the Deputy Head of Clinical Audit and Research on an abstract and a poster that is being sent to Madrid for a conference. It is about Cardiac Arrest response times and how this can be improved. I also got the chance to sit in on ‘999’ calls to help me get an insight as to where the data that I have been analysing comes from and to understand the severity of some of the calls.
East Midlands Ambulance Service
Megan - Lincolnshire Rivers Trust
Working with Lincolnshire Rivers Trust allowed for a real-time look into the different conservation projects that are taking place throughout Lincolnshire and how we as people have a direct impact on the natural environment. I believe that in doing a placement it has allowed a broader knowledge on how geography links with the outside world. It is important to contextualise what you are learning about during the time of study to allow an in-depth understanding of topics and the importance of what we learn as geographers.
Lincolnshire River Trust
Harry Roberts - Delta Simons
I did my work placement with Delta-Simons, an environmental consultancy company based in Lincoln. Their work focuses on specific sites across the UK, looking at contamination, pollution, and site suitability for building/construction projects - no two sites are the same! When I did monitoring we looked at groundwater levels and gas concentration, all of this is funnelled into the office work, which consists of logging the data collected in the field into a format that can be presented to the client, as well as writing huge reports that encompass everything about a site - from its history, to what has been done to the land surrounding it. All of these elements are used to see if the site can be used for the client's proposal.
Delta Simons