Education, training and development
Making the Most of Your Summer
The long stretch of the summer lies ahead. What do you have planned? For those ambitious, driven graduates, a ten-week internship is the perfect way to find out which direction to take their careers. Recent graduate, Andrew Farrington, gives his lowdown on his own summer internship experience.
When I started on my degree course, I soon realised that there were lots of like-minded students with similar qualities to offer employers. However, if you ask graduate employers what they look for in their prospective candidates, amongst the list will be experience. After some research I found a website, Inside Careers, which promoted summer internships.
Get stuck in
Internships range from spending four to twelve weeks of your summer experiencing a potential future profession to see if the reality matches what you read. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll just be making the coffee – most companies treat their interns as they would a new graduate. During your summer, you will be exposed to similar work to students on placement years in industry. An important factor to consider is that internships take a shorter time than a year long placement, giving you a ‘taster’ of what is involved - if it’s not your cup of tea, you’re free to follow another path. Also, with a year out in industry you will graduate a year later than many of your peers, and with an internship this is not the case.
As a mathematics undergraduate I was particularly interested in the actuarial profession, but the opportunities available to students are varied. From placements in the music industry to assignments abroad on development partnerships, if you have a desired career there is a good chance of summer work available in your chosen field.
Searching for the ‘one’
Finding an internship is a similar process to applying for graduate jobs. Many of the interviews, online tests, application forms and assessment centres you will experience in applying are similar to graduate experiences. However, don’t let this put you off. At first I was daunted by the sometimes lengthy application forms and the style of questions were very different to other interviews I had experienced for part time work.
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