The University of Abertay Dundee is about to participate in the prestigious British Council IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) scheme for the first time.
Careers Adviser Sandra Nicholson tells the story of how Abertay became involved in this exciting scheme...
"This highly competitive programme offers paid work experience, for periods of six weeks up to a year in some cases, to science, engineering and technical undergraduates overseas. Placements will involve real work on industry projects related to their degree discipline.
"In the past here at Abertay individual students have applied themselves to the IAESTE programme and some were fortunate enough to be selected. This year it was decided that we wanted to be able to offer our students a better chance of sharing in this wonderful programme.
"These were indeed great opportunities, but did our students want to take part? To find out we invited our contact from the British Council to do a presentation to science, engineering, and IT students. They voted with their feet - the room was full of interested students and in the end 40 students registered their interest.
"Our new Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Rosie Bateson firmly supported the project and started to plan our full involvement. It was impossible to imagine in October 2009 but now in January 2010 we have the agreement to take four overseas students during summer 2010: two in ACE, one in Student Services and one in White Space Solutions.
"It is all due to the support of a few far-sighted individuals who could see how this cooperation could result in four of our own students having the chance of a lifetime."
Watch this space for the next exciting instalment...
For more information see the IAESTE website.