How many hours should I provide? 

There is no single answer to how many hours a placement should cover, and it depends on each student's circumstances.

If the work experience is provided as part of a school work experience period, it's usually two weeks long, every day for normal business hours. If it's part of a college placement, then the college should provide you with details of the hours required, but it's likely to be over a far longer period and may need to fit in among periods of classroom learning. 

The key to successfully calculating the time needed is to plan out your activities and decide which ones will be hands-on and which are better demonstrated (work shadowing). Most work experience periods will include a mix of both.

One provider who takes veterinary students from university for work experience on their farm each spring gave the examples below of specific activities they ensure the students see or do:

• De-budding calves 
• Milking once a day 
• Calving 
• Vaccination 
• Feeding colostrum to newborn calves 
• Managing grazing through fencing placement 
• Observing foot trimming 

These activities are then ‘padded out’ with less technical tasks, such as bedding down animals and general site maintenance tasks.