You will gain experience and engage with experts in media fields. Employers need graduates with experience and a critical understanding of how the media and communications work. Oxford is a hive of media and communications activity, with a wide range of industry contacts who frequently support students in finding internships.You can also choose to get involved in Oxford Brookes’ student-run TV, radio and print media.
The Criminology Work Placement module is about ‘real world’ questions of crime and criminal justice. If you choose to complete the Criminology Work Placement Module, the partnerships and Placements team source your placement and match you up with an organisation based on what you tell us about yourself.
The overall objective of the placement is for you to develop as a reflective practitioner - and this is the focus of the two academic assignments while on placement.
Work placements gives you the opportunity to apply and practise your skills within a professional and practical context.
Students taking this placement don’t usually engage directly with service users or client groups, as the focus is learning about how the organisation contributes to the identification, management and prevention of crime.
The types of activity could include:
By choosing the Work Placement Module you could be placed in a number of settings, such as the police service, local councils, other public sector organisations and voluntary organisations or community projects. Wherever you’re placed, you’ll gain invaluable skills for your future career.
A work placement can be a stepping stone into a role you may not have previously considered, and allows you to learn more about how Criminology fits in the wider world.
The Oxford Brookes Criminology placement students were able to understand first-hand the impact of crime on victims and gain insight into our organisation.
Victims First Emotional Support Service
You can gain work experience in museums, libraries, the heritage industry, schools, or archives. This could include the Oxford Castle, the Museum Resources Centre at Witney, and Combe Mill on the Blenheim Estate. Past students have done projects such as researching locations for a visitor trail app, cataloguing parts of the Brookes Special Collection, and going into local primary schools to help with Magna Carta anniversary commemorations.
There are many opportunities available to History of Art students in Oxford; you can gain work experience in museums, galleries, and auction houses. The University’s own exhibition space, the Glass Tank, offers two placements to History of Art students each year. Our undergraduates have also held both voluntary and paid positions at the Ashmolean, Modern Art Oxford, Sanders printsellers, and Mallams auctioneers.
Our module on curatorial practice also offers direct experience of the theoretical and practical issues involved in curating displays and exhibitions.
My course has definitely given me the opportunity to acquire transferable skills which will help me in the future, such as time management, group work, and research skills. The department also organises careers evenings where Brookes’ alumni come back and talk about their careers after university. The new Curatorial Practice module also invites guest lecturers to come and talk about their experiences of working in museums or within the art world. Opportunities like these are very helpful as they give a real sense of the range of directions you can go after your undergraduate studies finish. I am currently applying for a masters degree in History of Art or in Curating, but later on I would like to work in the arts sector.
Victoria Zicos, History of Art and Fine Art graduate
Our Philosophy course offers you the chance to get involved in a work and community related learning project. You can pick your own work placement and write a reflective journal of 3000 words based on the experience. You can even use your existing job as a basis for a study topic. For example if you work part-time in a care home, you could write a project on memory loss in Alzheimer's patients, or look at issues of power and authority in the workplace.
The Philosophy course also offers a ‘philosophy with schools’ programme. This voluntary programme offers you specialist training in this field before embarking on a placement in a local school, teaching philosophy to children as an enriching educational activity.
During my second year we were given the opportunity to teach philosophy in a local school over a period of five weeks. It was a challenging experience to transform philosophical knowledge from a university lecture into a lesson plan. But the support we received from our tutor was incredible and ensured the project was a huge success. The extent to which lecturers go above and beyond what is expected is something I am both thankful for and impressed by.
Rowan Fisher, Philosophy graduate
