Finding a Placement in COVID Madness
My journey to successfully find a short work placement in the middle of a pandemic.
September 2020: I had just returned back to Manchester unsure of what my second year of university and life would be like. At first, I was dubious about choosing the ‘short work placement’ unit due to COVID restrictions, however, I managed to convince myself that I would be successful in finding a great placement.
Beginning the search for a placement was daunting at first as I had no idea of where to start, and with on-going COVID-19 restrictions in place I was sceptical that I would even find an accessible placement. I decided to begin the search within my exact psychological interests, children and education, but soon realised that this specificity was not the best approach and struggled to find any. After a re-evaluation of my techniques, I fell upon the University’s Volunteer Hub. Here was an abundance of opportunities relating to all manner of fields, leading to a much wider search than simply ‘psychology’. A large number of the placements on the hub seemed unrelated to my studies and future plans, and even more said they weren’t currently taking new volunteers due to the pandemic. After a few weeks, I still had only applied to a couple of possible placements, all to no avail, and was starting to feel the stress. As other university commitments and deadlines began to pile up as well, I began to think maybe I shouldn’t have taken this unit?
I soon discovered that perseverance is key, and in mid-October, I applied to ReachOut UK.
They caught my eye as they worked with children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and I would be trained as a mentor to help with character development. The charity further stood out to me as they were offering the project remotely so they could continue to take on new mentors and provide the service safely without going into schools. This was an ideal opportunity for me, as it related to the field of children and education, and meant I could complete the placement from home. I am extremely thankful that I continued my search, as I am finding my work with ReachOut to be highly engaging and it is providing me with a huge amount of insight into my desired field of study and work.
If I was to go through this process again, I would widen my search prospects from the beginning and apply to a much bigger pool of placements to give me the best chance possible of finding one, and minimise the stress induced my having a very specific goal in mind. However, the challenges of finding a placement during the COVID madness has helped me in my search for an industrial placement for my third year of study. I have discovered a plethora of resources to use such as: ratemyplacement, glassdoor and prospects, and I am now feeling much more confident in securing an exciting placement for next year.
