Opportunities for undergraduates in the UK, with a specific focus for oceanography and marine studies students.

If you know of any that aren’t listed here, please let me know! The suggested program should be suitable for undergraduates in oceanography.

General placement resources

Start here for general websites with placements: For all students at the University of Southampton, start with the Career Destinations website on placements and work experience: Work experience.

Southampton Excel Placement Programme: The University of Southampton Career Destinations services runs a programme specifically for Southampton students to find placements. These are both with companies and on campus. They also offer training and additional services to help to get the right placement for your skills and interests.

Research

• NERC research experience placements: For undergraduates AT the University of Southampton, you can use this scheme to go somewhere else. This is a competitive scheme with applications due in March or April, and includes a £200/week stipend for 8-10 weeks. Participating universities include: Cardiff and Oxford, as well as British Antarctic Survey, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Scottish Association for Marine Science, National Oceanography Centre. Students must be UK or EU citizens, or have right to remain in the UK.
• NERC research experience placements for non-Southampton students to come to Southampton: This is the same scheme as above, but the dedicated page for Southampton’s programme.
• RISE: For undergraduates to go to Germany. In biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering.
• SAMS research bursaries: which include a provision for seagoing.
• NERC diving unit: Operates out of SAMS, Scotland. These are occasionally available, but tend to be better suited to Master’s level students with specific objectives.

Industry

• DSTL summer placements: They list specific vacancies, but may sometimes have fluid dynamics-related work.
• Fugro GEOS: Paid summer work available (typically 6-8 weeks).

This is an old article in New Scientist (2011), but some of the opportunities may still exist: Science internships.

for US undergraduates

• NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): This is a funding scheme which has programs at many universities in ocean sciences. programme, which has a number of projects available in ocean (and other) sciences. These are only available to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals or permanent residents of the U.S.
• Scripps Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF): A summer research placement. I did this one when I was an undergrad and highly recommend it.
• University of Rhode Island SURFO
• Internship aboard US research vessels – Looks like a great opportunity, but as it’s funded by NSF’s REU program, is only available to undergraduates at American institutions. (See link for more detail.)

See also: MELDI for more opportunities.

Found any other placement opportunities? Let me know!