Mollie Cooke is a BA (Hons) Business and Management student is currently on placement in the Bid Team at WSP UK, a consultancy business offering engineering and environmental services. 

On placement, not only has Mollie been able to apply the knowledge she’d gained on her course, she’s also been able to develop herself both personally and professionally, finding out about her strengths helping her to define her future career direction. 

“Every day can be different depending on what I’m working on. I spend some days in the office and some working from home.  

“Primarily I assist in pulling together documents to bid for work, this involves working with different teams across the UK and the world. Typically in my day to day role I carry out research, write up findings, pull together information, talk to the technical teams, and other teams to gather information. 

“I also work on growing the business, researching and understanding more about the clients we’d like to work with in the future.  

“My course helped prepare me for the workplace in a few ways. Firstly, the range of modules allowed me to understand more about not just business but people within company’s and working with them. I also think the group work at university was good as it allowed me to work with different people and projects, working with new people to specific timeframes.   

“I was drawn to my course by the placement year opportunity and the chance to understand the day-to-day work at a company and apply what I would learn into a real workplace. Also the course has a wide range of modules on offer which I thought would open up a broad range of opportunities for me both at uni and afterwards. 

“Completing this placement has given me an unteachable experience. Being in the thick of a real-life working business has offered me better experience and understanding than I could’ve imagined. It has opened my eyes up to the real-life workings of a business, how a company works, what working is like and how I can apply myself in situations. I’ve not only learnt about work, but I have learnt about myself. I feel I’ve gained a lot of self-confidence throughout this experience and that I can apply myself, the skills and the knowledge I’ve gained into any business and work in my final year at university.   

 “I would highly recommend doing a placement year, it’s an invaluable experience. As someone who isn’t sure on what area of work to go into after university, a placement offers you time to realise what it is you enjoy and are good at and the aspects you don’t like as much. It can be a foot in the door and experience under your belt to add to your CV and show to potential new employers.“