Students return from placements for final year

A group of students have returned to the School after completing their placements in industry, both at home and abroad.

Last autumn, 39 undergraduates began their year-long placements with industry partners, including the BBC, Jaguar Land Rover and GlaxoSmithKline. Now, the students are back and set to begin the final year of their degree programs.

Catherine Teehan, Placement Officer in the School of Computer Science and Informatics, said: “A year away from lectures in an industry setting helps students to put the theory they have learnt into practice. It develops these practical skills, provides them with a unique experience of how industry works, and increases their confidence.”

The School offers a year in industry to students on its BSc Computer Science, BSc Applied Software Engineering and BSc Business Information Systems programs.

Student Thomas Townsend, on the BSc Computer Science course, travelled to Stavanger in Norway to spend a year with Roxar Software Solutions, which creates software for oil and gas industries worldwide.

“It was very exciting, I got to work with many programming languages, including C++, Java and Python, while gaining knowledge of oil and gas exploration”, said Thomas.

“The placement gave me a great opportunity to experience developing a commercial product. The year culminated when our sister company, Roxar Flow Measurement offered me the chance to go offshore to the Heidrun oil platform in the Norwegian Sea to help install one of their pressure and temperature sensors into a newly-drilled well."

Also returning to the School is Harriet Clarke, who spent her placement year across the Severn Estuary in the test department of DTVKit, a Bristol-based company specialising in set-top box software – often known as cable boxes - for the digital television industry. Harriet’s role included manual and automated testing, and working alongside software engineers to ensure software was rigid and ridden of bugs.

Harriet said: "Doing a placement has helped me in many ways, especially with self-confidence, passion and motivation to do well in my degree. The company I worked for have said they will help me with my dissertation project, and I have already been offered a graduate role as a Test Manager for a partner company."

Students begin preparing for their placement in the second year of their degree programs. The School helps to ensure students have access to a wide variety of salaried placement options, and provides ongoing support and guidance throughout their time away.

For more information about the degree courses on offer in the School of Computer Science and Informatics, including details of a year in industry option, please visit our webpage.