Internships - Learning through work
During the new millennium, congestion in the fiercely competitive job market shows no sign of abating, and yet the burgeoning of new enterprises in many parts of the globe spells huge potential. For a young job seeker, it can be the best of times, and a little ingenious planning with their university degree will boost the chances of those students gingerly stepping out into the job market.
A university degree that incorporates work experience is the first step towards ensuring a foothold in the employment market. Student work placements in an outside organisation, also called internships, are de rigueur these days. A dwindling number of universities now retain the pure classroom-based system of education.
Students embarking on an academic degree in many UK universities are offered the opportunity to undertake two or three days of work experience a week in an industry, commerce, public or voluntary sector. The placement usually lasts a semester and is undertaken in place of taught modules. Although internships are optional at most academic institutions, students are well advised to take up these opportunities to enhance their career prospects. Students are assisted in finding work experience that reflects their career aspirations and required skills development.
Most universities and colleges recognise the need to offer high quality internships to students. Similarly, employers have begun to hire students with a view to offering permanent employment to potential candidates. Thousand of organisations ranging from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to NASA and the British Parliament offer work experience to interns. For overseas students, the opportunity of working while studying in the UK is an exciting one. It gives them an insight into the work culture of another country, thus broadening their perspective.
Besides the short-term internships, UK institutions also offer four-year sandwich degree where students, usually in their third year, undertake work placements, which can be for a year or two six-month periods. While the semester internships are unpaid, sandwich programme placements are normally remunerative. Students are given responsibility for the development and implementation of systems and projects integral to their host company. Because of the nature of the work undertaken, students are supervised closely by the workplace supervisor and a university staff member.
Students not only work for an employer, but also relate their academic study to their workplace, benefiting from the focus on a specific organisation or project to a greater extent than is possible with traditional academic instruction. They learn from real problems and in real situations. Some employers also have better equipment and technology than academic institutions. Students are then assessed by their institutions, through portfolios that include reports on work experience, appraisals of projects, self-evaluation of performance and evidence of project outcomes. Changes in UK law relating to work permits for overseas students mean that work placements will no longer involve bureaucratic tangles. According to the Home Office, international students do not require permission from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to take up work placements, spare time or vacation work. However, students are not permitted to work for more than twenty hours per week during term time, except in approved placements.
The DfES, which funds eight projects to increase the quality and quantity of work experience opportunities in the UK, recognises the immense value of these placements for students in higher education. Owen Fernandes, of the DfES says: "Placements give students the key skills to make a quick impact in the job market. It gives them the opportunity of understanding the work environment and the business culture".
The benefit of these placements to employers is no less. UK's AT&T laboratories in Cambridge is Europe's leading systems engineering research laboratory, offering internships for up to twelve students for a three-to-four month period. The company seeks out excellent students and pays them for the duration of their placement. Dr Alan Jones, Head of the Research Department says: "We try to attract the very best talent. We hope to get good employees through these placement schemes." They offer placements to both UK and overseas students. For employers, it makes sense to hire a student after graduation if they have shown potential. The student will be familiar with the company and corporate culture, and the employer has had the opportunity to evaluate the students work, habits and productivity.
Institutions in the UK offer wide-ranging placements at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, with flexible schemes in operation where students can undertake year-round placements carrying university credit. Along with the semester and the year-long internship in the sandwich programmes, placements are also offered in the voluntary sector, where opportunities range from mentoring schoolchildren, to working with businesses to improve their environmental awareness and practices.
Spanish national Elvira Marcos-Moliner, a student on the MA Sustainable Environmental Management course at Middlesex University says: "My work experience internship at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development is better than I could have hoped for. It enables me to apply my previous studies in law to the issue of biodiversity property rights. This will be an invaluable foundation for my future career."
Author: Prasanna Probyn, School of Social Science, Middlesex University.
