what did you do for work experience at school?

A 2week placement in between AS and A2 in the Chemistry Department at the University of Surrey turned into a 5 week one, doing a research project on Ammonia Adsorption and Zeolite Particles, which eventually got me a Bronze CREST award. I didn't even like Chemistry that much.
 
I worked for the public health laboratory service, and learnt how to be an effective scientist and follow procedures etc. Most interesting thing I did, and actually still sticks with me 10+ years later, was when testing food for staphylococcus aureus bacteria it had to be placed in an 38 degree oven overnight - the smell when opening that door the next day was so awful!

Great place to do work experience though!
 
Worked as an assistant of the finance department of a private German firm's UK HQ. Did admin and database stuff, was pretty cool.
 
I worked for the public health laboratory service, and learnt how to be an effective scientist and follow procedures etc. Most interesting thing I did, and actually still sticks with me 10+ years later, was when testing food for staphylococcus aureus bacteria it had to be placed in an 38 degree oven overnight - the smell when opening that door the next day was so awful!

Great place to do work experience though!
 
I did two weeks at a local accountancy firm ... this would have been back around 1990 so there was still a lot of paper based things to do. I quite enjoyed it and it was about half the distance from my house than the school was.

A lot of my friends did theirs at Woolworths and got Christmas jobs out of it.
 
Airbus, It Totaly put me of engineering and changed my career path because of it. I was to young to appreciate the work place and regret the deacon I based on the work experience. After uni I spent about 5 years trying to get back into engineering before giving up.
 
cm1179 said:
right, britboy, i think you're alright and your 'is this girl real' thread you did was enlightening as to your persona. did this really happen? how on earth did you manage to get this sort of work experience? you got 15 flights? were you in the cadets and contacted up or something?
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I was in the ATC which helped.

School said I wouldn't have a hope. So I independently wrote to every single airbase in the country off my own back months before (each and every single CO or highest rank I could find)- which didn't take long (an afternoon maybe - EDIT and an afternoon to find the info .. before internet!!?) saying I didn't mind what work I did - how much I wanted to join the RAF - my ATC info. My dad helped me get the wording right. it worked (and got a good offer .. not 'cookhouse' or anything naff!). Now I look back -- I really should have written to all British bases round the world. Opportunity missed. Ho-hum.

Got Lynham, though EVERY SINGLE CO (or maybe their staff) I WROTE TO wrote back. Without exception. The shifts were 12 hours long, and also a military base is wierd as I didn't know who to salute so sometimes an officer would walk past and everyone would salute but I didn't. Bizarre.

It was also a LONG walk between the canteen and the hanger we were mostly in, maybe a mile - which was a pain.

I might have some photos of the gig somewhere .. but I look about half my age! Incidentally shortly after that I was in Biggin Hill playing computer games amongst other things to see (formally) if I could handle being a fighter pilot (2 day interview -- quite tough). Which I couldn't!! (Still, that was a blimin' interesting experience!)

You could get as many flights as you wanted by wandering over to this other building, looking at the whiteboard of flights, and getting the staff sergent to LITERALLY write your name in white-board marker pen under the flight crews names! And then turn up 15 minutes before the flight, on the runway - explaining to the crew about your work experience and waving my letter from the CO!! Believe it or not, that was it!
 
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Ironically I did a placement at the jobcentre.

I just got to sit in when people did their signing on interviews and stuff, was funny

Also it was when the world cup 2002 was on, so got to watch all the games in the staff room lol
 
I worked on a paint line in a foundry in Keighley, West Yorkshire.

I had to dip metal castings weighing up to 60 kilos into paint and then transfer them onto a drier.

I broke my foot when a casting fell off at the removal end.
 
Nothing. I had expected to be assigned a job relevant to the career I wanted to go into as discussed with my guidance councillor. In the interests of "fairness" these jobs were then assigned at random. So faced with the options of hairdressing and child care and not enough time to arrange my own I elected to take a weeks holiday.
 
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