International Work Experience Placement Opportunities with Blackrock Further Education Institute’s Erasmus+ programmes

Blackrock Further Education Institute is rapidly expanding its involvement in Erasmus+ mobility projects during the academic year 2019/2020, having successfully completed its first project in 2018.

Arrangements are well under way in BFEI for ten students (four from the Design Department and six from the Make Up Department) to undertake a three week work experience placement in Santa Cruz in Tenerife. This exciting opportunity will see the students working with a number of designers on the costumes and make up for the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The carnival is held in February in the capital of the largest island of the Canary Islands and attracts people from all over the world.

While our design and make up students will be displaying their creative and artistic talents in Tenerife, ten Business and IT students will travel to Utrecht in the Netherlands to undertake their mandatory two week QQI work experience placement in February. This is BFEI’s second year sending students to the Netherlands, working in partnership with ROC Midden Nederland. Described last year by one student as the “best experience of my life”, another student wisely advised that “any student who gets the opportunity to participate in Erasmus+ should take it!"

Ten Beauty Therapy students will also travel to Tenerife in March 2020 to spend three weeks working in four and five star spas and salons in the Playa de Las Americas region in the South of the island. The students will spend their days providing beauty and body treatments including manicures, pedicures, facials and body massage to clients but there will also be lots of opportunity during days off to explore the island, take a dip in the ocean or relax by the pool.

The impact of the Erasmus+ experience on BFEI’s students over the past two years has been extremely positive. Our students have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of living, learning and working abroad. It has provided them with a unique opportunity to enhance their technical and professional skills thus enhancing their employability while living away from home has greatly enhanced their self-confidence and independence.

BFEI will offer similar international work experience opportunities to students from a range of courses in 2021.

BFEI is a constituent College of the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board. Applications are now open for all courses commencing September 2020. Apply online now at www.bfei.ie.