'What are the benefits of Work Experience?’

Work experience can provide many benefits:

• It provides an opportunity for personal development as it helps students experience working with adults and in an adult way, being responsible for themselves and developing a range of skills, knowledge and attitudes that is relevant to adult life.
• It may help students to choose the right sector to work in or conversely, decide against a certain career path.
• It can offer the student the opportunity to gain experience of interacting with adults, on a level playing field, taking responsibility for themselves by arriving on time and also using their initiative to carry out some tasks independently. 
• It helps to build useful skills that cannot be taught in the classroom.

As a student, one of the great things about gaining work experience is that it gives you the chance to try things out to see if they suit you. It encourages students to explore a career or some aspect of work in which they have expressed an interest.

Work experience also equips the student with knowledge that will enhance their future job applications and interviews because they have gained a better understanding of a particular sector.  It provides an opportunity to speak directly to people who are already doing the job within their working environment

Work placements can also be used as a kind of taster session for your chosen career where you can weigh up the pros and cons and consider whether that job is for you. Introducing students to the world of work can help them choose a future career, understand the work environment and prepare themselves for employment.