Recently, local software companies in Brest asked for work placement students at Masters level. In 2007-2008, an innovative programme in software engineering was adapted to the work placement requirements. In this programme, students learn software engineering by doing, with a long-term project as the foundation of all apprenticeships. Apprenticeship periods are intertwined with the work placement periods. We present adaptations we made whilst keeping the programme objectives. The programme uses several hierarchical models that meet exactly at the two first levels: an activity model coming from the ISO/IEC 12207; an apprenticeship model; an ability model with 3 domains, 13 families, and 48 abilities together with 11 transversal competencies. At 4 key moments of the year, each student is asked to self-analyse the activities he/she did with regards to the immersion system's ability model and self-assess abilities on a scale from 1 to 5. Self-assessment averages of the 2006-2007 and the 2007-2008 cohorts are used to compare existing and adapted systems. Finally, we draft perspectives on the repercussions resulting from the work placement system.