a ramble about placement year

Some of you might be pessimistic grumps and just want university over as fast as possible, with tunnel vision on gruation, onlly to complain in five years that you didnt take the opportunities university allowed you, for example. placement year.

Placement year can be for many things, its optional for most courses, even if your course directors dont say a word about it until ast minute, know you have the option.
Apparently you can take it in your second or third year, this i was completely unaware off and probably wouldve preferred i took it in second, so id do better in second year assignments, instead ill be taking it now for my third year and when i return for final year ill be dedicated yes but itll be more of a challenge to get back in the university mode, at least if i had taken it in second year i would have a year to recover.

Placement year can be taken for work study or travel.
Thats your first dilema.
do you want to see the world? do you want fun? or is this a year for you to gain experience, and if so, what kind of experience?
Now back to he original dilemma, work study or travel because depending on your actions and point of view, anyone of these three can check all those listed boxes for you.
maybe whilst deciding where to go and what to do, youve decided you could do more than one, like study abroad, travel and work as you go, idk the point of placement year is, theres no two the same, its all up to you.
Your biggest problem will be funding. lets face it, the money will be safe and secure closer to home, but what if you want to get out there and se the world? if so, start saving, because i cant see a cheap never mind free way of doing that.
plane tickets and visas alone will eat up any pending overdraft you had tucked away.

placement year, to me shows you what kind of person you are, are you adventurous out in the amazon knee deep in mud, helping preserve wildlife ? maybe safe and secure and taking placement in an office not an hour from your mammys house. maybe you are a grey area of working abroad but still within reasonable plane distance to come home for Christmas.
what you do, how long you do it, and what you take from the whole experience, to me, really shows what kind of person you are and can be.

thats why anytime someone mentions placements to a student not on their placement yet, we roll our eyes, change the subject and mental scream and hide under a massive imaginary duvet. Placement might be fun and exciting and skill building but lets face it, until youre on placement, it is nothing but grey hairs, stress youve never experienced, and freakin sofies choice on what type of placement to choose never mind where and how youre getting it.
the decision is unfortunately up to us, and its not an easy one.

take my advice. plan for it from day one. save up, get your grades, get networking, get out there and know what there is available, so by the time it comes time for you to secure or decide on a placement, youll not only have options but funding and a solid plan.
you wont miss deadlines or realize you are a few grades short, therell be no sneaky costs you didnt account for, there wont be better exiting opportunities you didnt get because you didnt realize they even existed.
trust me, you want to plan it all, it wont make the process easy, but itll make it so much easier.

placements are so difficult for the undecided, flight risks. theres too many to choose from, and only one me to do them.