PROFESSIONAL PLACEMENT YEAR - SUSTAINABLE ENERGY MSC - 2025/6

Module Overview

The overarching aim of the module is to support the rounded development of personal and professional attitudes as well as to prepare for the (energy) job market. This module will also link the theories (that they have learnt) to practice through the Professional Training Placement in a relevant organization.

The PPY module will enhance their holistic academic and non-academic learning through the process that involves self-reflection, documentation via the creation of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) records, and planning and monitoring progress towards the achievement of personal development objectives.

There will be two supervisors: a Workplace Supervisor at the Professional Training organization and an academic tutor (PT) provided by the University.  

Through working on practice-based projects/problems, they gain knowledge and understanding of sustainability and Energy engineers' role and contribution to achieving UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).

Development and learning may occur before and during the placement, which is reflected in the assessment model as a progressive process. However, the graded assessment takes place primarily towards the end of 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 and presentation skills.

Industrial placement is an excellent opportunity to explore and practice reflective and experiential learning, and to promote reflection on developing professional skills and critical thinking which are complementary skills to all modules provided in this study programme.

Module provider

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Module Leader

BHATTACHARYA Suby (Sust & CEE)

Number of Credits: 60

ECTS Credits: 30

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

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

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

The module focuses on achieving the learning outcomes by offering, via the placement experience, the opportunity for students to nurture the employability skills that graduate employers look for and to develop the professional identity, competencies and attributes that support the future employability outcomes for students. This development takes place across a wide range of professional environments with great variety in the work undertaken.  Nevertheless, all of these offer the same opportunity to achieve the learning outcomes.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

Where an individual fails the group project an equivalent individual project covering the same learning outcomes will be provided.

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:

1. Placement meeting 1, a student should present a 10–15-minute oral presentation on the overview of the placement activities and skills acquired (addresses learning outcomes: 1 and 2).

During the industrial visit, a student will present the advancement in personal and professional skills developed during placement and critically evaluate the ability to conduct a project (addresses learning outcomes 1 and 2).

Intermediate reflection on the progress of industrial practice placement in terms of further development of skills and identification of skills that are required (addresses learning outcomes: 2, 3 and 4).

2. Placement meeting 2, a student should present a 10–15-minute oral presentation on the placement activities since the last visit which should include skills acquired and suggestions for further development (addresses learning outcomes: 1 and 2).

The final report comprises the work/tasks undertaken in addition to critical evaluation of the skills developed during the placement as well as requirements for further development (addresses learning outcomes: 2, 3 and 4).

Final Report (LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO5, LO6, LO7)

Completed at the end of the placement, this report reviews the student’s placement, analyses their professional practices and work environment and provides a critical reflection on their personal and professional development.

The 4,000-word Placement report contains two elements:

(a) a subject-specific or technical section (word count ranges from 3,000 to 3,500 words depending on the type of workplace.

(b) a section about the student’s reflection on their personal and professional development from the Professional Training placement (word count ranges from 500 to 1,000 words). The Professional Development Review (PDR) form must be attached to the placement report as an appendix to map the competencies achieved against expected professional attributes. 

Presentation (LO2, LO4, LO5, LO8)

Students must deliver an oral (or recorded video and live Q&A) presentation and present a poster covering their placement experience.
 

Formative assessment and feedback
Students will receive ongoing feedback as they develop their own Professional Development Review (PDR), which they undertake several times throughout the duration of the placement experience. This feeds directly into the development of the Reflective element of the Placement Report.

Module aims

• Enable students to develop the employability skills and attitudes/approach that graduate employers look for and are required of a person working in a professional capacity.
• Enable students to acquire and develop knowledge as it occurs in professional practice.
• Apply academic knowledge to the study of work activities and processes.
• 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.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

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 Professional Training Tutor (PT Tutor) is 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 are supported by placement meetings with the students on placement by a PT Tutor to support students’ critical self-reflection and learning and regular mentoring support via phone, email, teleconference or video conference. In addition, Return Days, Industry Days and regular support and review of the Professional Development Review and student development plans (as part of the PDR) provide additional experiential learning.


• The assessment of student’s performance by their respective placement providers is another key aspect of the experiential learning process for the placement student.

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: ENGM317

Other information

Surrey's Curriculum Framework is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

The placement module focuses strongly on students’ employability through extended exposure to the professional workplace.  This experience of the international working environment promotes their development as resilient, resourceful, and culturally aware global citizens. The placement offers the opportunity to develop digital capabilities, cultural sensitivity, and understanding of sustainability within the workplace, which are key to students’ future employability. 

Students will significantly enhance their use of word processing software for report writing, other important job/instrument-related software, and scientific databases for research. The software that the student typically uses will be Microsoft Word Excel for analyzing data and creating graphs, PowerPoint for presentation, and sketching software such as Visio. 

The work placement will also enhance digital capabilities using software depending on the sector.  For example, the software commonly used in the energy insurance sector is OASIS LMF (Loss Modelling Framework), QGIS (Geographical Information Systems), and Statistical software.

For Offshore Wind Farm Engineering, the software that will be used is SAP 2000 and PLAXIS.

Students will join a multi-ethnic environment when studying and, more so, in industrial practice placement, as most companies have a very ethnically diverse workforce. Furthermore, many companies may be multinational, and students will be exposed to working with people from different countries and time zones, which will significantly add to their global and cultural capabilities.

In addition, during the year of placement, students will be exposed to a different work environment/industry, which will inevitably have some sustainability agenda that students will be able to engage with and understand, thereby developing necessary sustainability skills.

Furthermore, solving problems will be almost an everyday task for students in an industrial practice placement, increasing their resourcefulness and resilience. There will be many situations where the experiment/task does not work immediately, and the student will have to keep trying, adjust their strategy, and continue to be motivated while repeating the task until it succeeds.

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.