Six Digital T Level students at Richard Taunton Sixth Form College have just completed a work experience placement at University Hospital Southampton (UHS). They developed crucial skills working in a range of IT departments to support thousands of staff and patients.
Favourite placement projects
One student, Eren Saint, just ‘clicked’ with programming in year 9 when at Regents Park Community College.
Eren embraced the chance to gain some work experience – a key part of the two-year Digital T Level course.
“My favourite project was the Windows 11 roll out. It was fun going around the hospital with trolleys of computers fitting them in.”
Classmate Chisom Favour Anozie also enjoyed that particular project, gaining timekeeping and report writing skills along the way.
“I got to see more of the hospital, working on different wards and looking at how life is in the hospital.”
praise from staff
The second-year students’ varied work took in stints for Electronic Patient Records, PC Support, Pathology and Switchboard.
Matthew Tiley has been supervising the students. The Desktop Services Analyst at the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) only had positive words to say about them.
“The students have been doing incredibly well. I have been very impressed with their performance. I have really enjoyed working with them,” Matthew mentioned.
Colleague and Support Technician in the Digital Operations Team at UHS, Andrew Syed, was also impressed.
“The students have been very keen. They have been willing to learn. They have been immensely helpful in helping us with our backlog. They are getting independent and are very enthusiastic,” Andrew said.
challenges on work experience
Like many days in the office, the placement brought its own challenges.
Aradhya Vyas, previously of Oasis Academy Mayfield, is keen anyone on placement remains positive.
“There are many challenges I have dealt with. Sometimes the tickets are too hard to solve. They are really confusing as the user doesn’t provide us enough data or information about the ticket which is really frustrating. I have overcome these problems by talking to colleagues and the senior who has this as a real job. They have experience so they help me,” Aradhya said.
University Hospital Southampton has been giving this valuable work experience to the College’s T Level students for two years. This level 3 course, equivalent to 3 A Levels, develops skills employers need through group projects, presentations and business challenges.
importance of placement
IT teacher James Meechan knows just how important experiences like this are for a young person’s future.
“The workplace experience that these students are gaining on placement is a boon to employers and helps them to break the “no experience, no job” cycle when they get into the jobs market. Through their work experience they have made a leap in self-confidence, understanding the real-world context of their academic studies, and are eager to get earning,” James said.
Umar Farooq’s new found problem solving and communication skills will be sure to help with those dreams of working in cyber security. First up though is a return to college and the final months of the Digital T Level, a course Umar very much recommends.
“Choose this course because it will help you in the future. When you go for your first job, you can say about your three months’ work experience,” Umar enthused.
interested in the digital t level?
Find out what you could study on the course web page.