November 14, 2014, by Hannah Smith
A day in the life of my placement
By Hannah Smith, Student Blogger
Feeling like a child on my first day at school once again, I headed up to that secret part of Pope building that you know exists – you walk past the double doors – but you don’t quite know what’s inside. Well… I do now! It turns out there is a small army of people who work in Marketing, Communications and Recruitment – a team I’m now temporarily part of for one day a week. You guessed it. I got my placement!
It all started in mid-October when the Placement Administrator for the School of English sent out an email to students in my school advertising the ten week placement that amounts to 60/70 hours overall. After completing an application form on workspace (with the guidance of the application form leaflet) and emailing it through, it was all a waiting game. Then I was offered an interview (with a panel of multiple people; it was described as a ‘question and answer session’) – which was pretty daunting. I found some advice online though, which helped me stay calm and collected – it must have worked because here I am at the end of my first day on placement!
Although a bit apprehensive about the initial few hours, I felt at home straight away as the staff were really friendly and my manager Mike was especially accommodating. We had a quick chat to establish what I hoped to achieve and what I’d be doing on placement. After a bit of thought, I decided that my main real motivation for having wanted the placement was to gain an insight into marketing and communications and perhaps even narrow down whether or not I want to go in that direction career-wise! Having not had much experience working in an active marketing environment it will definitely provide me with an understanding of what happens on a day-to-day basis in these departments.
My first project was to work on the university’s ‘HealthyU’ campaign: writing pieces for the portal, in the loop and scheduling tweets from the @UoNStudentNews account. In the long term I’ll be working on the National Student Survey and also on some print material that new starters receive before they come to Nottingham – all very exciting! I’ve also been tasked with some ongoing research about other universities and how they use social media accounts to interact with students which is especially interesting from a student perspective.
In order to make the most of my placement, I’ve decided to keep a bit of a work log – so I write down everything I do each day. I think that this will help me at a later date to reflect on what I’ve done and work out what skills I’ve been using and developing along the way and give me clear examples as evidence to use in future application forms or interviews!
That’s all for now – keep your eyes peeled for my next post!
Hannah x
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