You will be afforded a range of practical opportunities and work-based placements through which to raise your professional profile and enhance your future employment prospects. Depending on your chosen undergraduate degree programme and module selection, you may visit locations such as Manchester, Warrington, Kinmel Bay, Talacre beach and dunes, Llangollen escarpments and the Dee Estuary.
A distinctive feature of the undergraduate degree programme at the University of Chester, and one that is highly rated by employers, is the requirement to complete an experiential work-based learning (WBL) module during the summer term of your second year. This not only counts as one module towards your degree, but also provides invaluable experience for your CV, complete with an employer reference.
Alternatively you might consider developing your CV by opting to take a module in 'Fieldwork Applications' or an 'Experiential Learning Abroad' module.
Work Based Learning
You may take this module, which includes a five-week work based learning placement. You can either negotiate your own placement or ask the University to arrange a placement for you through its extensive network of employer links. The University's dedicated Work Based Learning unit has links with a wide variety of large and small organisations that offer a broad range of exciting placement opportunities. Work Based Learning could give you the chance to work with some of the most prestigious and innovative practitioners in business, industry, government, public service or the third sector. Our students have enjoyed placements with the Environment Agency, Ministry of Defence, AXA Insurance, CAFOD, Liverpool Mutual Homes, Homeserve, Chester and Cheshire West Council, The Environment Partnership (TEP), Natural Resources Wales and Safe Child Africa, as well as placements in primary, secondary and tertiary education around the country.
Fieldwork Applications: New York
At the end of your second year you may choose to participate in this optional field course to New York City, USA. As a global mega city, New York will provide you with the opportunity to study some of the most pressing social, economic and infrastructural issues faced by the world's most populous urban areas.
You will gain first-hand experience of these issues through meetings with professional organisations working in the field. Key transferable employability skills will be developed when you design and manage your own small-group research project, making use of your growing knowledge of data collection and analysis techniques in the process. You will present the results of your field research on-site in New York City at the end of the field course.
Experiential Learning Abroad
Opportunities to undertake experiential learning abroad are available through the University's Work Based Learning unit, who can help arrange trips to a range of stimulating destinations, such as China, Argentina, Morocco and Dubai. If you prefer, you may arrange your own placement; this can work well if you already have a working relationship with an appropriate organisation, for example, through volunteering. Alternatively, you may seek to gain practical experience of community based development work overseas. This could be organised for you through the International Office/Study Abroad which has well-established links between the University and partner organisations. You may select from a variety of projects in South Africa, Romania, Uganda and Costa Rica and this provides you with an ideal opportunity to travel with friends and gain experience of very different communities to our own.
Norway Expedition
For students interested in researching topics linked to glaciology, climate change, or cold region hazards as part of their third year dissertations, there is the option to travel to Norway to collect data in the summer between years two and three.
This is a real adventurer's expedition where you will experience staying in a base camp on the Fåbergstolsbreen glacier foreland. This location provides ample opportunity to study rates of glacier retreat, glacial erosion and deposition processes, weathering and soil formation, scree slope development, vegetation succession, microclimate and glacial hydrology.
