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Work placements: Diploma in Professional Studies

What we offer

If you're looking for fresh creative talent for your business, our students can bring new ideas and energy to your organisation through our work placement programme, the Diploma in Professional Studies.

You'll be contributing to nurturing the next generation of creatives, by giving an opportunity to our students to gain experience and apply their specialist knowledge to their chosen fields.

Photograph of art illustration
Hyunjin Seo, 2023 BA Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL | Photograph: Kristy Noble

The benefits for your business

Taking on our students for work placements your business will benefit by:

  • supporting the development of your product or service by rethinking its social, environmental and ethical impact
  • supporting the creation of innovative solutions which focus on sustainability and circularity
  • having additional capacity to develop and deliver special projects
  • gaining new and fresh perspectives from young voices.

Areas of creativity

Students have utilised their design and fine art skills in many roles, including:

  • art direction
  • creative digital arts
  • curation
  • exhibition design
  • graphic design
  • illustration
  • interior and spatial design
  • product design.

Current industry partners

What we ask from industry partners

Supporting our students

We’d like to hear from you if your business can benefit from our students’ skills, and you can support them by:

  • putting their knowledge into practice in the field
  • enabling them to try out job roles and exploring career options
  • giving them an opportunity to build professional networks and make key industry contacts
  • increasing their skills around teamwork, communication and project management
  • strengthening their inter-cultural understanding and relationships.

Recommendations and requirements

In recognition of the work and input as young professionals, we recommend that industry partners pay placements at the London Living Wage.

The Diploma in Professional Studies programme is academically monitored and assessed. Regular communication will be supported through tutors and UAL Academic Registry. Timesheets will need to be submitted by partners to evidence student engagement.

Partners need to be registered with HMRC and have employer's liability and other relevant insurances in places.

About the Diploma in Professional Studies

The UAL Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) is an optional full-time year of professional work placements that our students can undertake in their third year, as part of an extended 4-year undergraduate degree. Placements run between mid-September to the end of May.

Students are encouraged to find between 1 to 5 placements, with a requirement to work a total of 100 days between those placement roles.

Each placement needs to run a minimum of 20 days, but could run for the duration of the academic year.

Contact

Interested in hosting a UAL student placement or want further information?

Get in touch with our team at dpsccw@arts.ac.uk