Re: Student Lounge
It is very rare for someone in physics to go on a work placement in industry, although it does depend on the institution. One of the other postgrads in my group (who graduated from Bath, England) worked for a year at the synchrotron light source at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, England, for a year during her undergraduate degree.
It is though a different story when you get to postgraduate level. I regularly go away to Daresbury Laboratory to do experiments at the MEIS and XPS facilities and I could get to go to Japan for up to a month to do some experiments. One of my friends is currently in California for a total of 9 weeks callobrating with a theorist (this is the second time she's been this year, although her last visit in May only lasted 5 weeks), and another friend has moved permanently over to the SLAC in California.