Work Placement Module
One of the most exciting aspects of the Digital Humanities programme is the student's work placement within cultural heritage, media, research, and technology organisations.
If you are considering hosting a student, please contact Sarah Davenport at s.davenport@ucl.ac.uk
Object
The object of the practical placement is to give students the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge from their taught modules to a work-based environment. Our students learn technical skills such as programming, web usability and accessibility, digitisation, database management, data visualization, and also critical thinking skills via seminar-based discussion modules.
Duration
The length of the placement is generally three-weeks, maximum 20 hours per week, and it is undertaken at the beginning of Term 3, which starts on Monday 24th April 2023. Hosts need to be aware that in addition to completing their placement, students may have to sit an examination and so may need a day or two off, and will also be researching and writing their dissertations.
Duties
As the object of the placement is to consolidate and apply student's learning, it is expected that the hosts will encourage students to join and participate in existing projects or procedures, to provide an end-user's point of view on products, or even to develop proposals for discussion. Some hosts ask students to critique their existing products or services, to improve their value and usefulness.
Benefits
The benefits for a host in taking a student on a placement are many. The most immediate are: the host can benefit from up-to-date tech skills and knowledge via the student; the host can have an urgent or necessary project completed by the student; and the host can obtain fresh input from an outsider.
Students
Following their placements, all students are required to submit a short reflective piece focusing on the time that they spent with the host organisation, what they learnt from being there and what they were able to bring to the placement.
Previous Hosts
Students on our programme have been hosted by various companies and institutions, including; UCL Art Museum, The British Museum, School of Oriental and African Studies, Science Museum, The Warburg Institute, The British Library, UCL Petrie Museum, Black Cultural Archives, Wellcome Trust, the Marx Memorial Library, UCL Museums & Collections, The Postal Museum, Eastman Dental Hospital, UCL Library, JISC, Royal Society, Fulham Palace, Sage Publishing, Ubiquity Press, the Museum of London, Islington Museum.