Blog – Benefits of Completing a Placement Year

When you’re sitting in a lecture at university, you sometimes think to yourself what is the point in learning about protein trafficking? Or about the importance of neurotrophins for the development of the brain? Now let’s be honest, you have found yourself doing that once or 5 times. And that’s completely fair because until you have been in a situation where you can apply what you’ve learned, you don’t fully appreciate everything you have been taught. That is why in this blog entry I will be talking about how invaluable a placement year in a lab is.

First off, it’s probably best we define what a placement year is and how you can go about landing one. A placement year is a year off your studies at university where you work and gain experience in a field that is, normally, related to your degree. Some universities offer this as part of their degree program, for example, The University of Manchester. However, if your university doesn’t offer this and you would like to consider undertaking a research lab placement, then there are resources out there that can help you find one: Bright Network is an excellent example of one.

How I managed to score this placement was that my university sent round job adverts from different employers – academic and industry – and I would send my CV to the ones that had research projects that were intriguing to me. My spirits were dampened when I read the words “regret to inform you” or “unfortunately, your application was unsuccessful” one too many times. I almost started to give up on the idea of doing a placement year altogether but luckily, I did not for I finally got an acceptance email regarding my current job. That experience – putting yourself out there countless times and not getting the outcome you wanted – taught me how challenging rejection can be. I also found it morally difficult celebrating my achievement with my friends when they were still applying for placements. I felt as if I should’ve kept it to myself so as to not be rubbing it in their faces. All in all, the entire application process had its fair share of ups and downs but it’s a process that I would gladly redo.

There are many things that I enjoy about my current placement – cell culture being the main one. Having the opportunity to develop neurons and carrying out experiments on them to answer a biological question has really helped in me becoming more confident in my scientific skills and working in the lab, with other researchers and PhD students, has opened my eyes to the time and sheer dedication that goes into researching potential treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Additionally, it’s nice to have the chance to practice a technique that you have studied in a lecture. It’s sort of like driving, to paint a better picture of what I mean, learning the theoretical side on how to drive is fine but it makes a whole lot of difference when you are behind that wheel. And that is how I felt when it came to carrying out a RT-qPCR in the lab – for example I understood the importance of primers needing to be added at the beginning of the experiment and how reverse transcriptase is necessary for cDNA synthesis when it came to analysing if a certain gene was up- or down-regulated in my cell line.

So, we’ve covered what a placement is, how you can land one and what is enjoyable about it. But what are the benefits of completing work experience as an undergraduate? One, it makes you highly attractive to employers so even if your academic grades aren’t the best you could possibly still be considered due to your unique knowledge of whatever it is you have done in the lab. And two, you start to get a better idea of what it is you want to do after graduating, which we all know is a pain to think about.

If this blog hasn’t already made it clear… a placement year is a great way to gain experience and have a glimpse of what life is like after university. However, it’s not the be all and end all when it comes to getting a placement. All that matters is you get some sort of experience doing whatever it is you want to do in the future, so you feel more confident in knowing what it is what you want to do post-university.

Yasmin Bonsu

Author

Yasmin Bonsu is an an undergraduate student from the University of Manchester currently undertaking a placement year in the Carlyle Lab at Oxford University. Yasmin is investigating the activity of proteoforms of the granin family in cortical neurons insulted with oligomerised amyloid beta. Her goal is to finish her placement year, earn her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience, and then pursue a PhD in clinical neuroscience. Through Yasmin’s blogs we’ll gain insights on life as an undergraduate, and hopefully inspire others to pursue a career in dementia research.

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