Practical Placement

The goal of the course is to teach students how to, on an individual level, autonomously approach the gathering of new knowledge in a manner uncharacteristic for a conventional study process. Students thus become acquainted with the methods which they will have to use in their future professional careers or during their further studies on the higher levels.

Students obtain knowledge through autonomous work carried out under the supervision of the assigned mentor within the school or company/organisation, namely through undertaking practical placement. Students use the professional and methodological knowledge obtained during their studies in practice and thus learns to solve practical problems in their professional field.

The knowledge obtained and the newly acquired competences shall contribute to the increase of the number of employment opportunities for the future graduates of the School of Environmental Sciences of the University of Nova Gorica. Moreover, the companies and organisations offering students practical placements thus gain a possibility to find and select their prospective human resources.

The competences acquired are:

• the ability to use the obtained knowledge in practice,
• developing analytical thinking skills, which enable students to successfully study and solve actual problems in practice,
• the ability to individually solve professional problems by searching for the sources (including those in foreign languages) and using the research methods in the field of environmental studies,
• the ability to provide a critical evaluation of the results obtained,
• the ability to work in a team,
• the ability to work under supervision of a mentor,
• developing communication skills using professional language.

The prerequisite for the recognition of practical placement is passing all first- and second-year examinations.

Students undertake a mandatory 6-week practical placement within the selected company or organization in the field of economy, service sector, public administration, or research and development. The practical placement is based on the study of an actual environmental problem in practice.

Selection of topic of practical placement:
The school proposes a list of selected contemporary environmental topics and the adjoining list of companies and organizations, where students will study the topics during their practical placement. With the help of the school's coordinator for practical placements, who establishes links with companies/organizations and manages the list of topics, each student selects a topic of practical placement (in special cases and upon prior agreement with the School, the student can select the topic and place of the practical placement on the basis of his/her own choice). The topic defines practical tasks and goals which are to be performed or achieved by the students during the period of their practical placement within a company/organization. The topic is related to the students’ study field and reflects the interests of the company or organization and should therefore be of practical value for the company/organization. The topic of the practical placement matches the topic of the diploma seminar, which the students submit after having successfully completed their practical placements.

The course is designed in a manner requiring the students to work autonomously under the supervision of a mentor within the school or company/organization. Besides practical tasks, the course also requires students to search for and study various sources of literature related to the problem studied, which later serves as a basis for writing the diploma seminar paper.

Practical placement is carried out in accordance with the Rules of practical placement for students of the 1st-level study programme Environment.

Knowledge and understanding:
After undertaking practical placement, students are able to:
• use their knowledge of the selected topic, acquired during their studies, in problem-solving in practice,
• analyze a problem in practice from a professional point of view and by performing practical tasks and using the theory to suggest appropriate solutions,
• find relevant literature sources in the Slovene and English languages and perform a critical selection of relevant information, as well as to establish links between pieces of information to contribute to finding a solution of the problem faced in practice,
• to work autonomously in the selected working environment for the whole period of the practical placement (six weeks) and thus gain appropriate work habits in their professional field,
• present the results or findings to their co-workers, mentor and others.

Due to the contemporary nature of the selected topics and the fact that the selected topics are linked to an actual study case of an ongoing practice problem within the selected company or organization, the literature survey does not only consist of a review of a single textbook or scientific publication. It is rather based on data obtained from scientific and technical papers, internet releases, from reports etc., that is, through gathering and linking the information from various sources.

Descriptive grades »pass« and »fail« are used. A common grade is assigned to a student on the basis of the Rules of practical placement for students of the 1st-level study programme Environment.

Assistant Professor for field of Materials at University of Nova Gorica.

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• MAKOVEC, Darko, BELEC, Blaž, GORŠAK, Tanja, LISJAK, Darja, KOMELJ, Matej, DRAŽIĆ, Goran, GYERGYEK, Sašo. Discrete evolution of the crystal structure during the growth of Ba-hexaferrite nanoplatelets. Nanoscale. 2018, vol. 10, issue 30, str. 14480-14491. ISSN 2040-3364. DOI: 10.1039/C8NR03815E.