The Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) gives you practical experience in a real workplace. At the end, you submit a report that is assessed alongside your logbook and supervisor's evaluation. A good report is much easier to write if you prepare from your first day of placement.
During your placement: collect material
- Fill your logbook every day, not at the end of the week. Write what you did, tools or equipment you used and what you learned.
- Take notes on the organisation: its history, structure, departments and what it produces or provides.
- Keep evidence such as diagrams you drew, procedures you followed and, where allowed, photographs of equipment. Always ask permission before taking photographs at work.
- Ask questions. Supervisors are usually happy to explain why things are done a certain way, and those explanations make strong report content.
A common report structure
Departments have their own formats, so always follow the one you are given. A typical structure looks like this:
Preliminary pages
Title page, certification or approval page, dedication (optional), acknowledgement, abstract and table of contents.
Chapter 1: Introduction
A short background to SIWES, its objectives, and the aims of your own training.
Chapter 2: About the organisation
The company's history, mission, organisational structure (an organogram helps), departments and the unit where you worked.
Chapter 3: Work done and experience gained
This is the most important chapter. Describe the tasks you performed, the equipment and software you used and the procedures you followed. Link them to what you learned in class. Use headings for each major activity.
Chapter 4: Challenges
Problems you faced, such as limited equipment, transport or adapting to work hours, and how you handled them.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations
Summarise what you gained, and make practical recommendations to the school, the organisation and future students.
References and appendices
List any sources you used and attach diagrams or extra material as appendices.
Writing tips
- Write in the past tense and in your own words. Copying another student's report is easy for supervisors to spot.
- Be specific. "I learned networking" is weak. "I configured IP addresses on twelve office computers and tested connections using the ping command" is strong.
- Keep the abstract short, about 150 to 250 words, summarising where you trained, what you did and what you learned.
- Label every figure and table, and mention it in the text.
- Proofread, and ask a friend to read it. Check the font, spacing and margins your department requires.
Mistakes that cost marks
- A logbook that does not match the report.
- Long, copied descriptions of the company instead of your own experience.
- No link between the work you did and your course of study.
- Missing signatures and stamps from your industry-based supervisor.