Why take a year in industry?

• Explore a potential career path or industry sector
• Get hands on skills using interesting technologies
• Enhance employability through demonstrating a commitment to a career in a specific area
• Develop essential key skills for employment including; communication skills; team working; problem solving; time management and negotiation skills
• You will develop an awareness of commercial implications of projects.
• Quite often a placement results in the offer of a graduate position for after your degree.

Finding a placement

It is your responsibility to find a position, however students looking for an industrial placement will find the student careers helpful, with opportunities advertised through myAdvantage.

Some example companies where our students have spent intercalated years are:

• IBM at Warwick, Hursley, Portsmouth
• BT
• Siemens
• 3Com
• Barclays Capital
• Goldman Sachs
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers
• PA Consulting
• Powergen
• Asidua at Solihull
• CISCO Systems
• ATOS at London

Approval of placement

Your placement must be approved by the Department, as we need to make sure that you will be doing relevant work- we wouldn't want you to spend the year making tea! We will also want to see that the pay that you receive will be adequate to support yourself for the year.

If you have any questions as to the suitability of your placement, then please contact the intercalated year coordinator, Dr Sara Kalvala (sara.kalvala@warwick.ac.uk)

We will also contact your proposed employer to ensure that they will ensure your health and safety throughout your placement. A summary of this can be found in this pdf document .

Please also talk to your Personal Tutor, and check if a Placement for a year is the best option for you. There are many challenges, in particular to do with the disruption to the flow of your studies, so only apply for an Intercalated Year if you feel confident you will clear the year without Resits and that you can cope with both leaving the academic year and then coming back a year later.

Application Process

To apply for a year in industry, you will need to complete the placement approval form (link). We encourage you to submit the application as soon as your placement is confirmed and you have the necessary documentation.

We will process all the applications as they arrive, to make sure the placement is appropriate and also ask for clarification on any Health and Safety issues. However we only submit applications for Course Transfer after the June Exam Boards, as a condition for the Intercalated Year is that you must have passed the current year of studies at DCS. Until this is done the Course Transfer remains pending.

We realize many placements are only agreed upon much later, so we accept applications until the end of August. However, this will cause a delay in the course transfer process, and something you should be aware of.

 

Fees

During your intercalated year, the University charges a reduced fee; further information on the fees is available from the Academic Office website. If you wish to speak to someone about this in more detail, you can visit Student Reception in Senate House or email studentfinance@warwick.ac.uk.

Students who are supported by their Local Education Authority need to make sure they do not miss the LEA deadline for approval of funding, which may mean that they need to transfer to an Intercalated Year degree during the 1st term of the academic year preceding their year away.

Support during your Year Away

The department will ask you to stay in touch in a variety of ways throughout your year away, and these will be recorded as part of the Student Monitoring Points system--please look at your Tabula page for further details.

If you have a placement with a company in the UK, we will seek to arrange a visit by an academic member of staff from the Department, most likely your Personal Tutor. The academic will meet you and ideally your line manager, with the aim of checking if everything is going well.

If you experience difficulties during your year away which you would like to discuss with us, you can contact your personal tutor, the Intercalated Year Coordinator, the SU Advice Centre or Student Support.

Assessment for students taking Intercalated Year in 2024-25

Evidence for the successful completion of the placement is through a report submitted by you via Tabula. The deadline for submitting your final report will be 02 June 2025.

Your Final Report

You need to submit a written report about your intercalated year activities. This report should include details of (a) the work pursued/completed during the year, and (b) how you have benefited from the experience. It should be approximately 1500 words long, plus appendices if needed, and submitted as a PDF document.

It is not necessary for you to provide a very detailed description of the work; particularly if the work was of a confidential or sensitive nature. However, you should provide sufficient information for the assessors to determine whether the work was relevant to your degree course. For example, the report should describe the area in which you worked, the tasks you had to complete, your responsibilities, the supervision/management arrangements, the level of support provided by the company, if you worked as an individual or as a member of a team, if you were able to apply the knowledge gained from the first two years of your course, if you attended any training course(s), any new technical skills you have learnt, etc.
How did you personally benefit from the intercalated year? For example, the report should describe if you learnt any new key/personal skills, if the experience was helpful in determining the direction of your future career, if you would consider applying for a graduate level position with the company, if you would recommend an intercalated year to other students, if you participated in any extra-curricular activities (e.g. university student recruitment, company social events), if you enjoyed the year, etc.
The report is intended to be free format and open-ended. Intercalated year placements vary enormously and therefore it is difficult for us to be prescriptive about the content of the report. Some past students have included appendices such as a diary, departmental structure diagram, etc. A video diary highlighting your outcomes will be very welcome. The choice is very much yours.

Contact Details

You will be required to complete a form with your contact details during your year away which will be sent to you on approval of your placement. However you will also be expected to check your Warwick email frequently, for any important announcements and updates.

Returning to University

As you will be away for a year, there are some matters which will require your attention:

Selecting a Project for the return to University

You will need to find a project for the year when you come back (i.e. the Third Year Project or MEng Fourth Year Project). On returning from a year in industry, many students will choose a project aligned to their experiences. You can do this during your year away by browsing the project suggestions and contacting the relevant academic members of staff by email. In the case of 3rd year projects, you can alternatively find a supervisor and project before you depart. or further assistance, you can approach the project organisers Greg Watson (3rd Year) and Sara Kalvala (4th Year).

Accommodation

You will need to contact Warwick Accommodation to arrange accommodation for the year after - you will be able to contact them from term 1 during your year out. The deadline for applications is usually in November but check the Warwick Accommodation website in October. The telephone number for the Accommodation Office is +44 (0) 24 76523772.