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Students currently are working with a range of companies, from small and medium businesses to multinationals including American Express, Disney, Glaxo Smith Kline, Nike and Virgin.

Aidan Berry, Director of the Brighton Business School, said: "We are a professional business school – our students engage with industry through work placements, projects and guest speakers. This close link with industry often provides our students with opportunities to get a job.

"This is what the Business School is all about."

Professor Berry was speaking at the summer awards celebration where 50 partner businesses presented prizes to graduating students.

Virginia Goodwill, the Business School’s Industrial Placements Officer, said: "It is important students are properly rewarded for their placement work and for that reason we never advertise unpaid placements to them.

"Our placements are for a year and are taken in the third year of a four-year course.

"We place students in proper jobs at a graduate level. They are paid a living wage as a minimum, above the minimum wage. On average our placement students earn between £15,000 and £16,000. Some earn more, and many placements offer a salary between £18,000 and £22,000. A few firms in London may offer up to £30,000."

Graduates testified to the success of placements:

Aidan Berry

Jason Thorne

Jason Thorne, who won the Most Innovative Retail Marketing Portfolio, spent his third-year working for BMW UK in marketing. Jason was due to start full-time work two weeks after graduating. He said:

I was able to bring a lot of skills back to my final year and the benefits were the key contacts I made.

Joshua Lakey

Joshua Lakey's placement was on the management trainee course with Enterprise rent-a-car:

Doing a placement was the best decision I ever made.

Lauren Yearly

Lauren Yearly has started an internship with a London events company after doing a placement year with them:

I want to go into marketing so everything I studied will benefit me. The university gave me support to prepare for interviews, on career assessment centres and with applications.

George Eghator

George Eghator worked with General Electric, supporting external field sales of healthcare products. Before graduating he gained employment, managing accounts with an IT company.

My placement year was the best thing about my course and led to so many opportunities for me.

Emily Cassell

Emily Cassell's placement with Computer Centre, one of Europe's largest IT software solution companies, was extended by three months. She now works the recruitment company Spencer Ogden, founded by the same group:

I knew I wanted to succeed in business but was unsure of the area I wanted to go into. My placement firmed this up for me.

Rachel Braithwaite

Rachel Braithwaite's work placement was as a legal assistant with a law firm:

All the skills from that year will help me – I am planning to start studying a legal practice course in London in September. It’s the next step towards becoming a solicitor.

Lydia Clifton

Lydia Clifton won two prizes including Best Performing Student, for the third year in a row:

For my placement year I was lucky enough to go abroad. I worked for a tourism company and spent two summers in Ibiza and a winter in the French Alps working in sales and marketing. Now that I've graduated I’ve got a job quickly in my home town in Cornwall, with an insurance company.

Zac Hill

Zac Hill had his placement as the RAG (Raise and Give) Officer with the university’s Students' Union, fundraising and encouraging students to achieve. He plans to travel to Africa to help to build a school:

In a year or two I'd really like to be in marketing in the private sector and build up my skills. In the longer term I'd really like to go back to the third sector and give a little back. You can achieve great things. That's one of the things I have really taken away from this experience.