James Greenhalgh, Level 3 BTEC Information Technology student at Selby College, has recently completed virtual work experience with Arm, a global semiconductor and software design company.

After successfully applying for the placement via Uptree, James was invited to attend a fully interactive coding session with professionals from Arm. James was also able to network with Arm employees, hear talks from them on their experience of working at the company and ask them questions.

“Arm is a world-leading technology company, so it was great being able to partake in a coding session alongside professionals at the company, as well as find out more about what they do day-to-day. It was a really insightful and enjoyable experience and I hope to be able to carry out work placements at other technology and IT companies in the future. This has reassured me that I want to go on to study IT at University or look to carry out an Apprenticeship in the field,” said James.

The session also included an introduction to the company, where James was able to find out more about the Arm’s history and its technology, which has shipped in more than 190 billion chips to date and powers 95% of today’s smartphones. Headquartered in Cambridge, the company’s technology reaches 70% of the global population and has more than 6,000 employees from 85+ nationalities.

“It’s fantastic to see another one of our students being able to work alongside and learn from highly-knowledgeable and innovative companies such as Arm. Opportunities like this demonstrate to our students what they can go on to achieve when they work hard and put their minds to it, whilst also giving them something to add to their CV and UCAS application,” said Rebecca James, Work Placement Coordinator at Selby College.

This comes as a number of students have recently completed work experience with Britain’s biggest power station, Drax. The virtual work placement enabled the seven students to get a taste of what the world of work looks like whilst developing their general employability skills such as communication, networking and time management.

Eight A Level Biology and Health & Social Care students from the College have also completed a nine-week work placement with the NHS. As part of the project, the students were able to gain insight into the day-to-day workings and different departments of the NHS.

Talking about what she learned from the placement, Health and Social Care student Aimee Hastings said: “I really enjoyed hearing from different members of NHS staff about their roles and what they do. This highlighted to me how diverse their jobs are within the NHS, as well as how Covid-19 has impacted their lives and daily practice. The placement made me realise that I want to pursue a career in the healthcare industry and that I would like to gain further work experience in a hospital. I also plan to go to University to study adulting nursing to become a neonatal nurse.”

Find out more about work placements at Selby College, at: https://www.selby.ac.uk/employers/work-placements