Work placement (MENPRA)

The students undertake work placements in businesses approved by the university. There they get to experience how the change management study comes into use in ordinary work situations. The work placement takes place August-December, and the students take part in dedicated tasks within the businesses they are placed in.

Before the semester starts, the students receive information about which business offers them work placement. A start-up seminar is arranged in the beginning of the semester in order to prepare the students for the work placement. In the seminar, the students are given practical advice necessary to complete the work placement period.

Throughout the work placement period, the students shall write a work placement report consisting of two parts. In part one, the students are to describe the business they are placed in and the tasks they have. In part two, they shall present an examination report of greater scale, based on a certain problem. The student finds the problem in collaboration with the relevant business. It is expected that the students submit two drafts of the work placement report throughout the semester, as well as commenting on fellow students` drafts. Throughout the work placement, the students will be followed up by the business and given academic supervision from the Department of Media and Social Sciences. Every student has three counselling meetings in addition to a compulsory joint gathering where the report drafts will be discussed.

It is expected that the students after completing the course will have the following knowledge, skills and general competencies.

Knowledge

Students who successfully complete the course will:

• Have knowledge about how their academic competence can be used in the work life.
• Have knowledge about how development, change and leader tasks are initiated and carried out in a work context.

Skills

Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:

• Use academic knowledge acquired in the study programme in a real work situation.
• Combine theory and experience based learning and reflect upon theory and practice in relation to each other.
• Understand how businesses organise their work, and relate academic questions to real and actual work related situations and contexts.
• Reflect upon their own role and ability to act in relation to others as well as discuss the use of academic competence in practice.
• Critically assess his/her own work placement.

General competence

Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:

• Adjust to tasks, context and place in a given business.
• Contribute academically to development, based on the employers needs.
• Comment and give feedback on written work.
• Plan and hold an oral presentation of a greater project or report.

Students enrolled in the Energy, Environment and Society master`s programme, who have achieved a minimum average grade of C in 80 per cent of the first semester courses, can apply.

Applicants who meet the above criteria, will be evaluated based on their application and CV. Nominal length of study will be emphasized. The students can also be invited to job interviews by the potential businesses. All applicants are not guaranteed to be offered work placement. Those who do not receive an offer must choose other elective courses.