Work Experience – Is It Worth It?

Picking the placement module at university seemed like a great idea at the time. It was sold to us on the grounds that the experience we would have would be invaluable in finding a job or even, for the lucky few, securing a post-university job.

What they didn’t tell us in the module handbook was getting a placement is almost impossible. After trying every possible creative company in Leeds with a previous link to the University of Leeds – none of whom replied to emails or answered phone calls – and on the verge of giving up, a Google search brought up Harris Associates.

Having been at Harris Associates for four days now I can safely say I have got a better deal than a lot of my peers. I’m not sat in a corner making coffee and photocopying, I am gaining hands on experience of how the company works, what a client expects and putting the basics of previous university modules to good use.

Of course arriving on my first day was nerve-wracking, but being given work to do soon settled the nerves. From taking screen shots of clients’ social media sites to putting together and designing a press folder for a client to composing tweets for the Harris Associates Twitter account I have learnt a lot more than I expected to in the first few days.

Undertaking a placement in a company that does what I’d like to do when I graduate has definitely been a good idea. For some it will have put them off their desired career choice, but for me it has shown me that I can do more than code pages and write essays, and hopefully the experience will help me find a job once I do graduate!