Virtual student work placement success at Aviagen

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Third-year undergraduate students have undertaken a three-week online work placement at Aviagen, a global broiler breeding company.

Aviagen’s vision, to feed future generations by producing a healthy, sustainable source of protein, was a perfect match for the students’ interests in sustainable food systems, integral to their degree programme in Global Agriculture and Food Security.

Breeding sustainability projects

The students’ projects included working within the Marketing team at Aviagen to review their sustainability messaging.

The task was to review marketing materials and to consider strategies to increase the profile of sustainability on the organisation’s website.

Another project, focused within the Research and Development team, involved analysing a large dataset to explore the key production traits in birds related to biological performance and sustainability.

Learning into practice

By focusing for three weeks on specific tasks, the students were able to put their learning into practice and to apply their learning in communication skills, planning and data analysis. 

The students participated by working from home.

This created opportunities to meet Aviagen team members in various locations, helping them to gain a greater global perspective.

This included meeting the Marketing Managers for different geographical regions, which was a valuable experience.

Leaders of the future

Following the placements, participants have reflected on the skills they have gained, further skills they hope to achieve, and career possibilities.

The experience at Aviagen has triggered conversations among the students around the importance of speaking a second language, data skills, team work, leading projects and much more.

The experience of working within a global company is so valuable to help students apply their learning in the real world and to explore career opportunities and options. Thanks very much to Aviagen for hosting our students and giving them a really meaningful experience.

Dr Susan Jarvis

Being able to do a work placement at Aviagen allowed me to develop many skills needed in the workplace and understand what direction I want to go in after University.

Francesca van der Linde

It was a really valuable experience to learn from industry professionals – my time with Aviagen helped me to understand their practices and processes and also to see how their teams worked together.

Lovisa Bergmann

Having Francesca and Lovisa with us at Aviagen for their work placement was a mutually beneficial experience.  They showed real interest in our balanced breeding and sustainability commitments and presented exciting ideas and excellent work.  We are always keen to showcase the many career opportunities at Aviagen and the poultry industry in general to future generations.

Santiago Avendano

Related links

Studying with the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security

Aviagen

_{Image credit: Jason Leung on Unsplash}