In addition to academic qualifications, students increasingly need to differentiate themselves in a crowded job market through personal added value such as relevant experience, skills, and abilities. It is also known that in addition to the employment benefits, completing a work placement also affects academic performance. Each student on a work placement has an assigned tutor in the company and a tutor from the university center, who belongs to the department corresponding to the placement topic. In the engineering degrees, a work placement is a good option. Normally a work placement is carried out in a company external to the university. However, if there are not enough nearby companies that participate in this training and professionalization activity, one option is for the work placement to be carried out in the laboratories of a university department. This study reviews the work placement learning literature [1-2] and, analyses work placement experiences carried out in laboratories of the Physics department of the University of Girona.

The main advantages of work placement learning are:
a) Improved academic follow-up and university monitoring,
b) supervision by a tutor with continuous interaction with the student,
c) monitoring the attainment of objectives,
d) academic recognition,
e) compatibility with mandatory courses and,
f) professional experience before finishing the degree.

It has been found that some students prefer to stay in university departments because they help them balance their schedules and they tend to have more flexibility regarding their schedule than in a company. Regarding activities, they prefer those related to transfer over those related to basic research. In the case of Physics laboratories, students who carry out a work placement are directed towards more applied research and it is intended to be related to industry, thinking about the future professional development of the students. The assessment of the students at the end of the activity is usually positive.

References:
[1] R. Brooks, P.L. Youngson. 2016. “Undergraduate work placements: an analysis of the effects on career progression”, Studies in Higher Education 41(9), 1563-1578.
[2] R. Mansfield, R. 2011. “The Effect of Placement Experience Upon Final-Year Results for Surveying Degree Programmes”, Studies in Higher Education 38(8), 939-952.

Keywords: Work placements, university, Physics.