Warwick Uni - Psychology work placement leads, please

[SunflowerSeahorse]

Hi,
Our son is in Year 2 of a 4 year Psychology degree at Warwick. Year 3 has to be a work placement (paid) in a relevant / related field. He needs to apply soon.
He has spoken to his tutor who said that the university does not help students to find placements. How helpful; remind me how much university fees are?
It is frustrating as students from the university go on placements every year, but there's no list of contacts or any advice (unless our son has missed something)
He has posted on the university student forum, but nobody has responded.
Any help or advice gratefully received from former students (especially at Warwick) anyone from the university, anyone from employers (NHS maybe?) who have taken on students for a paid year of experience.
Many thanks

@SunflowerSeahorse , you could post on the Warwick uni Facebook group for parents but my dc looked into this and I think Bath Uni is the only 1 that helps find placements, most others you have to do it yourself or convert to a 3 yr degree.

Overseas fees for that course are £24,800 or £31,620 if it’s considered lab based! So uk fees are a bargain! Yes. Students do have to be proactive and find placements. As in many walks of life, it’s who you know! It’s not vital to do 4 years.

Has da tried the careers service at Warwick - they may know of some or at least what previous students have done?

Get him to have a look at indeed.com etc. this one popped up for example... looks great! careers.astrazeneca.com/job/cambridge/12-month-university-industrial-placement-student-uips-patient-engagement/7684/59731494784

Our DS is also looking for a placement, although not for psychology. He has found the best places to search are https://www.gradcracker.com/search/all-disciplines/engineering-work-placements-internships (although this is STEM focused so may be no use for psychology, sorry) and https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/ where you can filter for placements and which seems more wide ranging.

Our experience is that DS is having to put in a huge amount of work (think 5 plus hours for most applications) as well as keeping up with Uni work and his part time job. From 14 applications so far, he has 6 rejections (4 where he got down to the last stage), 1 where he is waiting to hear from the last stage, 2 further interviews booked and 5 where the process has not yet closed.

It's very tough and he has worked hard to be rounded with part time work, voluntary work, relevant independent learning and industry conferences to show on his CV. We've done a lot of proof reading for him and some of the searching too.

Good luck

Contact the NHS

You could try contacting the local NHS trusts work experience teams. Have a look at SWFT, CWPT, UHCW and George Elliott - all have psychology departments.

Substance rehab, offender rehab, dementia charities are often where assistant psychologists work so he could try those too.

But yes rather than waiting for someone to give him a list he will need to be pro-active in contacting potential placements.

Myton Hospice?

How can nhs psychology teams take on loads of work placement students? It just seems an impossible dream. Everyone is short staffed. It’s also a victim of being a very popular degree offered just about everywhere so puts even more pressure on work placements. How vital
is the placement to his career? One assumes not all psychologists who are qualified have done one. So might it be better to put some effort in but if not successful, do the three years and concentrate on work after that? Unless of course all the people who did get placements are first in the queue for suitable jobs!

We went to an open day at Aston University this year and was talking to the Head of Psychology about placements and he told us that the NHS don't pay for work placements (which was a bugbear of his), but he said there are lots of good placements available, especially within corporate and he said that he'd had students being paid more than him!

Your DS could also look at a placement aboard? And there's also no requirement to stay at Warwick for the placement. Also I don't think its compulsory to do the placement?

Corporate placements for psychology? Or for other degrees? How is corporate relevant?

Does “lots” available equal more than enough to go round?

The link to the website details jobs you could do with a Psychology degree, so worth looking at employers in these occupational areas and approaching them to see who offers placements. I agree that Universities really should do more to help with finding placements, even if enabling students to be able to do this for themselves. https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/what-can-i-do-with-my-degree/psychology

@redrobin Bath uni don't find placements for their students. They still have to do all the work themselves. However, as Bath have offered degrees with a placement year for much longer than many other unis, they do help students get prepared for making applications and share the experiences and wisdom of the final year students who have returned from placement. It's possible they work with some companies that only take Bath students as they have historic links, but in most cases the students are applying for the same placements available to everyone.

OP - are you sure it has to be a paid placement? One of DDs friend's placement is at a uni as a research assistant and it's unpaid. I thought many psychology placements were unpaid. Could he skip the placement year and instead volunteer a decent amount of hours local to Warwick uni? Find a summer internship close to home?

Would he be interested in the behavioural science side of psychology? Civil service do placements although your DS might have missed the deadline for next year.

Or if he's done enough stats then there will be pharma placements but that's pushing it a bit in terms of relevance but good experience.

I actually think unis should be clear about how many students doing the additional year actually get a placement. Plus how and where. It’s often thought unis get the placements for the students but they don’t.

@fortyfifty that certainly wasn’t true when I didnl
psychology at Bath. They had longstanding relationships with loads of host organisations both abroad and in the UK and gave a lot of support to their students to apply.

OP what’s he interested in? Does he want to do clinical psych? Educational or something else? If I had my time again (and as someone who didn’t end up in a psych role) I’d have gone for a corporate internship (EY / banking / consultancy / occupation psych stuff)

Because most people studying psychology won't become psychologists. Human Resources, marketing, aspects of law.. there are many fields that work for psychology grads

@redheadsaregreat Oh yes. I agree. I thought you were talking about placements for enhancing the cv for becoming a psychologist - in a corporate setting. I know several psychology grads and the only one that’s done a masters is a mature student: in councelling.

What has he done besides contacting the university forum? What area of work is he interested in? Does he have to work alongside a psychologist?

If he is interested in clinical psychology has he contacted the local NHS department heads himself? Does he have any initiative at all? There are so many areas one can work in as a psychologist (it's not a protected title) that he has a lot of choice in HR, civil service, NHS, private health care, local authority, independent sector... anything involving helping people understand or support people in a system can be a potential placement under the right supervision.

Warwick are really letting students down. It sounds like they're happy to boot them out for a year and don't care where they go. I did psychology, I don't see the point of a placement year at all. It's just delaying qualifying as a psychologist, which can take 8+ years anyway. Are you allowed to just skip it and go straight into a third year?

I don't know if they still do, but when I worked for a large care company that had mental health services I know i sometimes trained (mandatory training) student psychologists who were on yearly placements. Maybe worth googling some providers and see if they can help 🤷‍♀️

There are unlikely to be many suitable placements if he is expecting something directly relevant. Your son needs to be creative or give up the idea of a placement year. Lots of unis offer placement years they don’t offer much help with. Warwick is not unusual in that, unfortunately.

If it appeals to him, he could consider applying to local schools as a teaching assistant for a year. This would give a valuable insight into child psychology and schools are crying out for TAs. He could look on the Greensheets website for vacancies. In my last school we had a young man with us for a year on placement though he was doing a Law degree! Not relevant to his degree at all but he has realised he wanted to work in a more people centred career after graduating.

He could also consider applying to companies that offer undergraduate placements in Marketing or Human Resources as many psychology graduates end up in those sort of fields. The uni careers service could help with that.