PROFESSIONAL POSTGRADUATE YEAR REPORT - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module supports students’ development of personal and professional attitudes and abilities appropriate to a Professional Training placement. It supports and facilitates self-reflection and transfer of learning from their Professional Training placement experiences to their dissertation and their future employment. The module is concerned with Personal and Professional Development towards holistic academic and non-academic learning. Development and learning may occur before and during the placement. However, the graded assessment takes place primarily towards the end of, or after, the placement. Additionally, the module aims to enable students to evidence and evaluate their placement experiences and transfer that learning to other situations through written skills.

Module provider

Computer Science and Electronic Eng

Module Leader

KAZAMIA Stella (CS & EE)

Number of Credits: 30

ECTS Credits: 15

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Crosses academic years

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

Co-requisite: COMM056, Aligning Business Value with Research and Development Pre-requisite: COMM002, Dissertation

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• The module focuses on achieving the learning outcomes by offering, via the placement experience, the opportunity for students to nurture the employability skills that employers look for and to develop the professional identity, competencies and attributes that support the future employability outcomes for students. This development takes place in specified professional environments where work undertaken is directly relevant to the Masters degree that features this module. All programmes including this module offer the same opportunity to achieve the learning outcomes.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate the learning outcomes regarding the successful acquisition of a Professional Training placement, and the acquisition of the employability skills and competencies that support students’ graduate employability outcomes.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• a report that assesses LO1 through L06.

The report is completed at the end of the placement this report describes the student’s placement, the range of tasks they performed in respect to SFIA roles relevant to the Master programme, analyses their professional practices and work environment and provides a critical reflection on their personal and professional development. The Placement Report contains two elements; (a) a subject specific or technical section (word count ranges from 2,000 to 4,000 words depending on School/Department requirements); and (b) a section about the student’s reflection on their personal and professional development from the Professional Training placement (word count minimum is 2,000 words).

Formative assessment

Students will receive ongoing feedback from their employer, and from the University’s Visiting Professional Training Tutor during the three placement visits. This feeds into the development of the Reflective element of the Placement Report.

Module aims

• This module aims to:
  Enable students to acquire and develop knowledge as it occurs in professional practice.
  
• Apply academic knowledge to work activities and processes in practice.
• Enable students to mature through the evaluation of their placement experiences.
• Support students to develop and apply new skills appropriate to their professional setting in which they are working.
• Enable students to develop the employability skills and attitudes/approach that employers look for and are required of a person working in a professional capacity.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and practical experience covering the module aims and learning outcomes. The learning and teaching methods include:

• The learning and teaching methods are predicated on experiential learning through the placement experience itself.

• The mentoring, coaching and assessment role of both the workplace supervisor and the University’s Visiting Professional Training Tutor are focused on ensuring that students achieve the learning outcomes for the module; these relate to (1) personal and professional development, (2) evaluation of placement learning and (3) transfer of placement learning.

• The learning and teaching is supported by placement visits to the students on placement by a Visiting PT Tutor to support students’ critical self-reflection and learning and regular mentoring support via phone, email or teleconference.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: COMM057

Other information

Digital Capabilities
In this placement module, students will learn to work in an industry setting in a role that requires them to use their data science knowledge. Many placement providers have training schemes in place to provide new technical skills.  Students will learn to fit their work into a larger workflow. The placement is structured in a way to ensure that students grow in responsibility as the placement progress and take on a more challenging technical role as they gain more experience

Employability
This module provides students with a year working in an industrial context and applying the data science skills that they have learned during their degree programme. They will learn to work within a larger team and within the workflows of their placement organisation. The years experience working in industry provides strong evidence to future employers of the student's ability to contribute in a technical role.

Global and Cultural Skills
During their placement, students will work within a team with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Computer Science is a global language and the placement opportunity allows students to build skills that will allow them to develop applications with global reach and collaborate with their peers around the world.

Resourcefulness and Resilience
Students taking a placement year must adapt to the challenges of working in an industrial context and working within a team to meet deadlines. This challenging experience will build skills that can only be learned in the workplace. Students will build experience working within company that will be invaluable in their future careers.

Sustainability
Computer science can be applied in many different contexts and placements are available in companies that specialise in sustainable solutions. Students will get the opportunity to select a placement provider that allows them to apply their computing knowledge to problems related to the UN Sustainability Goals and contribute to solutions.

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.