Just a little over a year ago, I could’ve never imagined myself working a corporate 9-5, much less enjoying it.
However, when I took the initiative to expand my horizons beyond just the university lecture halls and stepped into my work shoes via a placement year, I was given the platform to not only hone my existing skills and utilise them to their full potential, but also to work on those that still have room for development.
Here are three things my placement year has taught me, that you may also learn from yours.
Effective Communication
I know this is a bit of a boring one that everybody likes to talk about, but it’s only such a buzzword because of how important it is. This is what will elevate doing a PowerPoint presentation in front of your tutorial group to chairing a meeting with dozens of external stakeholders, and what you will be using when you are one day defending your research thesis or hosting a business conference.
Throughout my placement, I didn’t just learn about what the pillars of effective communication were, but also how to adopt the flexibility of implementing them in a myriad of avenues. I found myself applying the 7 Cs of communication – Clear, Concise, Concrete, Correct, Coherent, Complete, and Courteous – everywhere from meetings and emails to day-to-day conversations and academic reports. So whether you’re struggling to hit the word count on your essay or agonizing on whether or not to add that ‘:)’ at the end of your email, learning how to communicate effectively will save you a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
Clinical Operations
This one is specific to my placement but will still apply to any field out there. Before doing this placement, I knew very little about clinical trials beyond what I’d learnt in my academic curriculum – new drug is developed, tested to see if it does what it says it will do while also not harming people, and then finally put on the market. However, commencing my role as a Clinical Development Manager introduced me to the immense industry that is Phase 1/‘First-Time-in-Human’ (FTiH) trials, and their importance. It has shed light on a potential career path that I was not previously aware of.
On the other hand, doing a placement can also serve as a ‘test drive’ of sorts. It can enable you to discover what kind of work culture doesn’t mesh with your values, and what projects truly align with your personal experience, academic knowledge, and career ambitions.
Strategic Focus
Very seldom in life will you have only one thing on your plate. When you’ve got a group project presentation on Wednesday but a report due on Friday, how will you manage to tackle the two exams you have next week?
One of the most vital skills I’ve adopted from my placement is that of strategic focus. When faced with multiple tasks at once, I have learned how to assess the time, effort, and resource requirements of each, which subsequently enables me to plan my course of action. Whether I decide to prioritize certain tasks over others or break them all down to set SMART goals, I am now able to take an outcome-driven approach at managing my workload while still maintaining productivity.
Doing a placement has granted me the opportunity to take my student experience to a novel environment and equipped me with skills that an academic setting could not have. Now at the halfway point of my placement, I find myself becoming a much more effective communicator, wanting to delve deeper into a new and immersive field of work, and gaining proficiency in prioritization and planning. This has me anticipating what the remaining half will bring, and how it will all amount to my final year of uni and the following years to come.
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