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Placement Insights with General Electric Healthcare

We interviewed James Huish about their time on placement last year with General Electric Healthcare and the struggles with online application processes. Here is what they had to say: 

Who did your industrial placement with?  

General Electric Healthcare 

As described on its website, General Electric Healthcare is a leading global medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and digital solutions innovator. They enable clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services, supported by its Edison intelligence platform.

What was your role?  

Software engineer in the Medical Imaging Team 

Why did you do a placement?  

I wanted experience working with programming in an actual job, both to learn and to help with getting a job after graduating 

When did you start applying and how many places did you apply for?  

I applied for 3 or 4 and had a few video interviews but got rejected, I had more or less given up but then a lecturer posted an advertisement on Canvas, and I applied through them. 

How was the application experience?  

The applications for most were frustrating with 1-way video interviews where I had to record myself and got no feedback. In the placement I got, I just had one video interview, but it was actually with the people working there, rather than the other 1-way recorded interviews. 

What, if any, help did you get from the university when applying?  

None, although the placement I got was advertised through a post on Canvas. 

What work did you do over the course of your placement year?  

It took a long time to get much work but when I did it was a variety of things, for example, porting an application from windows to Linux and adding features, helping to bug fix and improve an application in development, and managing a Blinded Image evaluation (not coding related). 

How was the overall experience of doing a placement?  

Good, there were times I did not have much to do and also, I was not in a software team. The people were great, and I had a great experience but would have learnt a lot more if I were in a team with more software engineers. 

Would you like to go back to that company after your final year?  

I would, depending on available roles and location. 

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Placement Insights from Roche

Returning from a year in industry to complete their current year at Newcastle University, we interviewed Finn Rea about their time with Roche. This is what they had to say:

Who did your industrial placement with?  

A Swiss pharmaceutical company called Roche  

What was your role?  

Data scientist  

Why did you do a placement?  

Within the tech industry, I saw that experience seemed to be more valuable than qualifications. I really wanted to gain an edge when it came to applying for jobs at the end of my degree, so doing a placement was a must for me. I also want to take the opportunity to see what it was like to work in the healthcare industry and whether this was something I would want to pursue after university. It was also an opportunity to learn about the application process and how to find jobs.  

When did you start applying and how many places did you apply for?  

I started from the end of October to the end of December, but then university got busy, so I stopped applying for a while. Then I did most of my applying in February. I applied for 30 roles and after each application, I logged what stage I was at with that role in an excel sheet to help keep track of everything. 

How was the application experience?  

Initially, I found the process exceedingly difficult, not getting many responses or using a good interview technique while also trying to balance it with university studies. I knew that by reflecting and improving on my CV and gaining some interview practice through a couple interviews, I would be more likely to progress further with job applications and hopefully get a job.  

I also didn’t take the first opportunity that came to me but waited to be able to pick from a couple of options. 

What, if any, help did you get from the university when applying?  

I attended a couple of CV writing sessions provided by the careers service. I did also take inspiration from and ask advice from the CVs of other students on my course, which was a massive help. 

What work did you do over the course of your placement year?  

I mostly worked on exploratory data science projects. Looking at the newest technologies and methodologies within data science. I also had the chance to talk at conferences about things explored at the company.  

How was the overall experience of doing a placement?  

I would strongly recommend to anyone to try and do a placement year. I gained a lot of experience and learnt a lot while there. I also got to see how a big company worked, and how it worked across multiple different time zones. 

Would you like to go back to that company after your final year? 

My company has offered to pay me to do a master’s apprenticeship at the company, something which I am planning to do. 

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Augmented Reality Laboratories Internship

Job Title: Augmented Reality Laboratories
Location: Newcastle University, on campus – Herschel Annexe
Pay Rate: £16.21 per hour including holiday pay
Advertising Dates: 20 October – 29 October
Role Overview/Background:
This internship is being offered as a casual work opportunity by the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics at Newcastle University and is being facilitated by the JobsOC team in the Careers Service.
This internship is expected to be for a total of 100 hours, working approximately 20 hours per week between November and December.
The internship is open to all Newcastle University students; however, Physics, Engineering or Computing students would be particularly suited to the role.
Laboratory skills courses are crucial in helping students gain hands-on experience of doing experiments, better understand the theory behind them, see practical applications of their knowledge and skills, and provide a basis for future employment. In cases of lockdown, shielding, inability to take up residence in Newcastle, limited facilities, space, personnel, University hours, to address the issue of equality of opportunity that students face, online experiments are needed. To increase users’ perception and interaction with the real experiments, a sensation that an activity is handled as if students would be physically on-site, the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics will introduce augmented reality (AR) techniques in the laboratory.


The intern will participate in the design and development of AR physics experiments. Planned activities include thinking, creating, programming and enjoying.


Key duties/tasks:
Mechanical design and building of experimental setups to suit their remote operation
Building electronic circuits using Arduino’s to connect mechanical parts of setups to computers
Researching, developing, evaluating, implementing and testing AR online labs
Working in a small interdisciplinary team
Discussing progress on a regular basis
Participating in project planning


Person Requirements
Essential Skills/Attributes:
Enthusiasm and desire to develop AR online labs
Ability to work collaboratively
Creativity to find solutions for AR online labs
Teamwork
Initiative
Time Management
Organisation and Planning
Attention to detail
Problem Solving
Desired Skills/Attributes:
Familiarity with AR development
Experience programming in LabView

Degree discipline
To be eligible to apply you must be a Newcastle University undergraduate/postgraduate student registered on a programme of study throughout the 2022-23 academic year. For full details of eligibility see the Working on Campus website.
Students from all degree disciplines are welcome to apply; however, the role would be particularly suited to Physics, Engineering or Computing students.
Newcastle University is committed to being a fully inclusive Global University which actively recruits, supports and retains staff from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all our employees and the community they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from everybody, regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender identity, marital status/civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, as well as being open to flexible working practices.


How to Apply
Apply online via the following link: https://forms.office.com/r/sukqvUPyv9
For further information about the role contact Aleksey Kozikov, Lecturer in Physics, aleksey.kozikov@newcastle.ac.uk

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An Interview with the Careers Service

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We interviewed Sara Williams about their role as Careers Consultant for Newcastle University and learn exactly what they do, and how that can be a big help to you. 

Sum up your role in 10 words or less 

I help/facilitate students to achieve their career goals.

What are the official responsibilities of your role? 

Official responsibilities include: 

  • Carrying out appointments with students either via our drop-in system,  
  • Pre-booked online or in-person and longer 1-hour appointments for career guidance and mock interviews 
  • Delivering some of our central workshops.  

I also work closely with the academics and Employability leads in the schools of Computing and Engineering to understand student requirements and plan a calendar of events.  

Being up to date with what’s happening in the jobs market and sectors that might be relevant to our student groups as well as more broadly with recruitment trends and assessment methods is also an important part of my role. 

What are the unofficial responsibilities of your role? 

Unofficially I get involved with a wider remit of what the career service does whether it be helping out on University Open Days or at Careers Fairs and hosting employer-led events. 

“Have things on your CV beyond academics”

What are the top three mistakes you find that students make when it comes to employability? 

Not mistakes necessarily, more learning points.  

  1. I think maybe underestimating the recruitment process and how many stages you might have to go through for some companies and perhaps not being prepared for that. 
  1. It’s tricky as not everyone can commit to it but, having things on your CV beyond your academics can be really useful, not only so you can showcase a broad range of skills to employers but also as a learning process for you to figure out what you are good at and what you enjoy. 
  1. And I think number three is that students can often feel the pressure to just jump in and start applying before they have taken a step back to try and understand what they might be looking for in their next job, and more broadly, their career. 

What employability resource do you think is most helpful for students? 

I think one of the challenges is that there is SO much information out there and so many resources. I might be biased but our website is really comprehensive and covers a wide range of employability topics from planning your careers to what to expect at assessment centres and what you can do to prepare. 

Here is a link to view all those resources:  https://www.ncl.ac.uk/careers/. 

“Learn as much about the assessment process you will go through as you can”

Where in the process of getting employed (applying, interviews, assessment centre, etc.) do you think students struggle with the most? And how can they overcome that difficulty? 

I think each of the assessment stages can come with its own challenges and people can struggle with different things.  I think the key bit of advice I would give here is for students to try and learn as much about the assessment process they will go through either via speaking to someone at the organisation, looking at their website or looking at sites like Glassdoor. Armed with that knowledge they can then use the multitude of resources via the careers service to help them prepare. If I was pushed for something more specific, I think interviews can be really challenging as sometimes students may not have ever had a formal interview before. There’s a lot of advice and guidance out there on interviews and I’d also encourage students to use careers appointments to practice answers or talk through answers with a consultant. 

How many students make use of the employability team? 

Oooo that’s a tough one as it can be hard to define how students use the Careers Service. As an example, we conducted about 8,400 appointments last year and roughly 4,000 students came to one of our workshops. Beyond that the Careers Service also looks after processing for on-campus job opportunities, hosting employer events like our careers fairs, our curriculum team runs and manages a careers module, our placement team manages around sending 150 students out on placement and our start-up team also supports students in terms of building their own businesses or if they want to operate as a freelancer… 

“Students can make use of the careers service 3 years post-study”

If there was one piece of advice you want students to take away from this interview, what would it be? 

Make use of the careers service!  

We’re here to support you through your time at Newcastle and beyond (students can access us for 3 years post-study) and we offer impartial advice and guidance on anything to do with careers. 

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Forage: Free Lessons from Industry

Your university degree allows you to learn a lot about a range of topics, but with the broadness and speed at which it progresses, it’s impossible to learn everything you want by just focusing on your degree. This is where Forage comes to help! 

Forage is an online virtual work experience platform that hosts several online programs built and endorsed by a slew of big companies. These courses offer great experience in technology and related roles like software engineering, cyber security, or data science. Here are some of them: 

Each of the courses contains tasks engineered to simulate the real-world experience of the industry and each only takes a few hours to complete.  

As part of your degree, you get access to all the courses for free and you can do as many as you want. I recommend experimenting and trying different roles as this resource is a perfect addition to career development or career decision-making. And it lets you experiment with fields you might otherwise not get the chance to learn from! 

With each course completed, you receive a certificate that you can add to either your CV or LinkedIn account. 

I was able to experiment and try a range of different courses that helped test skills and give insights into careers I could go into in the future. One of these was a Software Engineering course run by Electronic Arts. 

They covered a range of insightful and helpful topics through 4 different challenges that only took an hour or so each to complete, which made it a great extracurricular activity. 

This was particularly beneficial to me as I hope to work in the game industry following university, but that didn’t stop me from looking into other courses for fields I wouldn’t want to commit an entire module to, like data science. Cognizant provides an interesting bite-sized look at data science and its applications through its Artificial Intelligence Virtual Experience Program. Introducing things like Google Collab and machine learning, the course provided a nice overview of a part of computer science I didn’t know much about. Here are the different sections: 

I could keep talking about some of my favourite courses, but we would be here for a while. Instead of learning about my experiences with forage, I wholeheartedly recommend you try it out for yourself as soon as possible as not every step to employment is massive, but rather a mere 4 to 6 hours addition.