Train day to Dornbirn

Today is a travel day. I need to take a series of trains all the way across Austria to get to Dornbirn where I'm doing my next interview tomorrow morning.
Students doing work placements is commonplace here and you see examples everywhere:

• Yesterday morning our waitress for breakfast was a student doing a BA in Economics who fits in her job around her studies, she is starting a one month work placement at a major bank in a few weeks.
• Last night the waitres at our restaurant was a BA student studying finance who is trying to setup a work placement now, it is the students responsibility to arrange their own work placements.
• I noticed that our train conductor has a young man with him who is obviously a workplace student, he has an arm band and is taking note of how the conductor does his job.

I'm very impressed at how integrated the work placement program is here, it is a natural expected study component that is linked directly through to assessment. Apparently the employers love it as they get a free staff member but more importantly they get to test potential future employees. I love the fact that teachers get to build relationship with the employers when they discuss the assessment outcomes.