Career-ready placements

Our region as a living lab

Offering students the opportunity to gain practical experience while studying is a central focus for the School of Humanities, Creative Industries, and Social Sciences with professional placements, career-ready placements and internships embedded into many of our degrees. Below are some examples of the exciting placements for our students.

The Everyday Laboratory

The School's Everyday Laboratory (EL) uses our city and region as a living lab for teaching and learning. It offers a new approach to career-ready placements, enabling you to engage with local sites and organisations, build networks in the community, and add professional skills to your graduate profile.

The EL connects arts and social science students across a range of courses to the places and spaces surrounding the University. The courses will link classroom activities, online tasks, assessment items, research projects and placement opportunities to sites, places, exhibitions, events and institutions in our region.

Examples include museum and gallery exhibits as places for observation and review, historical walks, engaging
with large events like the Newcastle Writers’ Festival or This Is Not Art, writing for the local press and underground media, editing for publishers, creating websites and content, blogging and vlogging, making podcasts or digital stories, ethnographic experiences, and more.

The EL comprises six loosely organised themes, each encompassing a range of relevant courses from different disciplines. The themes offer a different form of specialisation than traditional majors. Breaking down the discipline silos, they forge interdisciplinary links around shared issues and challenges.

The themes are designed for students who have career aspirations in these areas or want to add a professional edge to their generalist degree.

Our six themes

  1. The Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative Newcastle
  2. Digital Worlds: Regional Histories in Contemporary Focus
  3. Arts Communication
  4. True Crime
  5. Coal, Climate and Post-Industrial Transition
  6. Gendered Violence: Understanding Impacts and Healing

User Guide

The Everyday Laboratory themes are designed for students interested in working on real-life issues in our local community and gaining essential professional skills and networks in the process. The six themes are curated suites of courses, linked by shared topics and a shared emphasis on authentic learning. Other than normal program requirements, there are no restrictions on the number or combinations of courses you can take. Simply enrol in the courses that appeal to you – no sign-up or registration needed. If you would like more information about the School's career-ready placement opportunities, check out the brochure.

Festival X

In addition to gaining real-world experience throughout their study, Creative Industry students in particular also have the opportunity to share their work with the wider University and local community through exhibitions, screenings, performance nights or networking events. Festival X is an annual event which showcases the culmination of students’ work in the areas of animation, design, communication, theatre, music and film. Festival X 2019 featured 40 unique events, bringing together students, staff, industry and community to celebrate our students’ achievements and showcase years of dedication to their craft.

Festival X 2019 - Career-ready placements

View your placement options