Student stories

I believe the placement year is an important part of every student’s experience at Surrey and crucial in discovering your next career goals.

During my placement I picked up an enormous amount of technical knowledge, but I believe that the soft skills I acquired are even more important. By working in a team on a day-to-day basis, I increased my team-working, communication and presentation skills which were crucial during my final year.

Self-learning is a key skill in growing as a developer and the Final Year Project develops your ability to work independently and produce a result which you then present at a professional standard – which is very similar to how a product is delivered.

The broad scope of my role on placement... showed me that I like to be involved with different stages of development on a number of projects. For this reason, I accepted the role of software engineer with my placement company after graduation.

I discovered that South Asian women commonly have low vitamin D levels, likely due to lack of exposure to sunshine and from little vitamin D in their diet. This vitamin D deficiency may impact their bone health, which in turn can severely affect quality of life.

The academic staff at CES are incredibly accommodating. They’re always there to support students, making themselves available, and offering advice and guidance wherever needed. The support I received from my dissertation supervisor in particular was amazing.

The course really stood out from other options – not just the diversity and depth of the modules, but the extracurricular opportunities such as radio, DJing, events management and live performance.

Studying for my masters enabled me to stand out when looking for job opportunities, and it is now proving to be useful when dealing with everyday challenges at work.

Doing the MSc gave me the skills and knowledge to go beyond superficially writing code based on what has worked for others, allowing me to understand the depths of what I was doing, which has empowered me to make informed decisions.