My Placement Experience with Newcastle University Business School

My name is Mia, and I am a Marketing and Management BSc student at the Business School. This year I decided to take part in a placement year where I found myself staying within the Business School, however not as a student but as an employee.  

Placement years happen between your second and third year of your studies, where you go work in an industry that you wish for 9 to 12 months. They are a great opportunity that the University allows you to take part in, gaining hands-on experience in an industry of your choice. I currently work within the Business School’s Marketing team as a Marketing Assistant Intern, 10 months in and it has been an incredible experience! 

Finding the placement  

The process in finding a placement can feel long and repetitive but it is absolutely worth it. The Business School’s Placement and Study Abroad team hosted regular placement information sessions from the beginning second year, these were very helpful and insightful. Ellen, Anna and Aaron welcomed all of us curious students and provided us with the knowledge we needed about where to start with placement search, what to expect, tips for interviews and even offered 1:1 appointments to tailor our CVs correctly. They supported all of us students throughout the whole of our search and even now, throughout our placement year.  

We were advised to look on websites such as MyCareer and RateMyPlacement (now known as Hire In) to find roles suited to us, these websites provided a range of roles from well-known companies across the UK to small independent companies, something to suit all students. Along with this, the team brought in previous placement year students to these sessions to discuss their roles and experiences, this is actually how I found out about my current role. I liked the sound of what the intern had explained and straight after the session I went online to find the job role and apply. After applying I was invited to complete a few tasks and had an interview with three members of the Marketing Team. For the tasks I had to create a blog post, a social post and a website banner. I really enjoyed the creative aspect of the application process and made sure my work reflected the University branding to stand out. 

Not long after my interview I received a call to say I had been successful and would be joining the team in September 2024. I finished my second year of studying and it was not long till September came around. Filled with both excitement and nerves for my first day, starting a new job can be daunting, especially going into a professional environment. However, my team made me feel incredibly welcome and were helpful to me as I settled into my new role.  

My role as a Marketing Assistant Intern 

As previously mentioned, I am a Marketing Assistant Intern. My core responsibility lies with managing the Business School’s social media channels (Instagram, Facebook LinkedIn and X). This includes content planning, creating content, engaging with followers, reporting on performance.  

No two days are the same, especially when working with social media, some days I can be at events filming and interviewing students on camera other days I’ll be editing using Canva or CapCut and preparing content to post on socials. Although this is my main responsibility, I have also had the chance to work on a range of different tasks providing a well-rounded experience to add to my CV.  

Some other things I have worked on include, creating posters and screens to share key messages around the School, working on campaigns, taking part in a two-week intense sprint to improve student communications at the University, presenting at events and conferences, creating content audits of our channels, creating YouTube videos, writing news stories and working to improve engagement with our alumni community.   

Not only this, but I have also had the opportunity to shadow other teams around the University, this allowed me to expand on my experiences whilst gaining a perspective of how different teams work across the University. I was able to shadow the University’s central Social media team several times from getting content, reporting and planning. I have also experienced working with the Business Schools Events team, seeing the behind the scenes of planning a conference for 2026.  

By doing a placement year, I have solidified my career decisions, and I now know that a career in Marketing, more specifically Social Media Marketing is 100% for me. Prior to my placement, I assumed this was the career path for me but did not have relevant work experience to know this for sure. Now I do and I can happily seek roles within social media marketing in my final year and post-graduation. The placement year has not only helped me professionally grow but also personally too, I now am a much more confident person, I can easily go into meetings and propose ideas and share my opinion in them. I am also more confident now in talking about myself and my skills, something I lacked prior to this year but will now benefit me in interviews.  

This placement year has progressed my career and experience greatly in the last 10 months. I am excited to continue until the end of July and make the most out of this time.  

Advice to students going on placement 

My key advice for students who are about to embark on a placement year would be:  

• just say yes. Give everything a go as you might find something new you love 

• show your enthusiasm and be proactive  

• take any feedback as a positive and use it to grow 

• ask lots of questions and be curious, not only about your new role but the wider company 

• keep a journal or log of what you have been doing, it is easy to forget some of the smaller task you have done 

• just embrace and enjoy the next year, it will fly by!  

For those students who are unsure about a placement year, I would encourage you to definitely consider doing one. I have had an amazing year within my role, and I have grown and developed so much in a small amount of time.  

If you wish to speak to the team and find out more information about placements or even study abroad, you can reach out to the team at nubs.placementandstudyabroad@ncl.ac.uk