An expensive sleep: Department of Education officials stayed at Ramada Hotel and a Premier Inn 

Department of Education officials spent more than £156,000 on Coventry hotels for the financial year 2012-2013.

The figures were obtained thanks to a written question to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, by Conservative MP Priti Patal in the House of Commons.

Gove revealed on 25 April that 1,464 of his department’s employees stayed in hotels within the UK and 52 officials stayed in hotels outside of the UK for the financial year 2012-2013.

The total cost of the top 20 hotels for the period was £1,004,707 and the Coventry bill was split between two hotels:

1. Premier Inn, Coventry City Centre (£96,681)
2. Ramada Hotel, Coventry (£ 60,081)

View DfE Top 20 hotels by spend 2012/13 in a full screen map.

Stuart Elleray is a final year business management student at the University of Surrey.  The 22-year-old hails from Surrey and travels into university every day to complete his studies. Similarly, he was able to commute into London while completing his digital marketing internship, his first and only placement to date

Even though living so close to his university is advantageous – especially when it comes to saving on living costs – I wondered if Stuart felt like he was missing out on the infamous ‘student experience’.

He said: “Yeah, it saves costs and that’s important as students aren’t wealthy. I feel I do miss out a bit, but I lived on campus in first year then decided to live at home.”

Stuart added: “As long as I watch the train times or stay round a friend’s house I can go out and party.”

The football enthusiast was attracted to a business degree because he had always enjoyed the subject. At secondary school, for instance, he studied three A-levels in business related disciplines.

Stuart explained: “It’s quite exciting. I get to cover an array of interesting areas during my course like marketing and finance. I’ve always done quite well in the area and shows like The Apprentice have enhanced my enthusiasm even more.”

Starting off

Stuart decided to take a gap year during his second year at university in order to build up some valuable experience and strengthen his CV. The 22-year-old said: “I was going to do a work placement, but couldn’t find one, so I decided to do an internship.

“My friends were doing it as well. I didn’t want to go into next year without my friends being there, to be honest.”

He explained that the application process was not hard. Stuart found the marketing internship advertisement on a recruitment site after searching on Google.

The cricket player added: “After that I was invited in for an informal chat. Basically the guy explained what I would be doing and that was it. There didn’t seem to be anyone else going for it.”

I wondered if this casual approach and lack of pay put Stuart off the internship.  He told me that as a student, who was not flush with cash, he was originally worried about the opportunity.

“Then I realised to get experience you need to start at the bottom,” Stuart explained. “You know, you might have to be unpaid, but the lack of money was probably worth it at the time. The internship gave me the chance to meet and network with new people.”

A typical day

I asked Stuart what he had to do on a typical day at the recruitment company during his digital marketing internship.

He said:  “I did some candidate profiling for the organisation. If someone was following us on Twitter, for example, I would add them on LinkedIn and see if they were after a job. I also searched for new clients for the organisation as well as conducting internal HR tasks.

“At the start, when I wasn’t getting paid, I didn’t have too much responsibility. Overall, everyone was really nice and it was great place to work. For me, it was all about the good people I had the chance to work with.”

The 22-year-old commuted into the capital from home, which took around an hour. His travel expenses were paid for by the company and, even when he eventually got paid for his work, the organisation kindly still paid for his train fairs.

With his experience in consideration, I asked Stuart if he would complete another unpaid internship in the future. “Yeah, I would definitely consider another one if I couldn’t get a full-time graduate job,” he explained to me. “Hopefully all the people that I’ve met will be a big help to me when I leave university and I’m looking to secure a job.”

The entrepreneur

In a few months time Stuart and two of his friends are due to launch a new start-up called Flairshare. The website is a community for university students to showcase their talents and offers them the opportunity to compete with each other.

Stuart explained: “Students upload something to the site related to their with talent and fellow students rate it. The idea is that you’re trying to earn points for your university.

“As a University of Surrey student, for example, I could upload a clip of my singing and hope that the clip becomes popular. It’s sort of based off the Oxbridge sport rivalry.”

Further down the line Stuart and his colleagues are hoping to create another version for companies to use, including increased search facilities.

He added: “What I found last year is that there are a lot of jobs, but applicants haven’t got the right talent to meet the company’s desired criteria. Flairshare will hopefully readdress this issue.”

Stuart and a university friend first came up with the idea for the new start-up by combining an idea about universities competing online and a sports portfolio website. They got together and wrote a marketing concept document.

Stuart had some spare time during his internship and was able to work on the project part-time. He said: “We started coding up around October time, but realised we needed help from a bigger company. So my friend, who knows some designers in York, sorted out the other side of things. It’s been a long process – over a year and a half now.”

I was intrigued to learn from Stuart how someone so young and short of cash was able to acquire the money to successfully get a project like Flairshare started.

The 22-year-old said: “We gave some investors an equity stake in the company and we were able to pay the designer up front.”

He added: “Someone from our cricket club gave him us a small percentage as well. For the first payment of the back end we paid for that out of our own money.

“There are other people who are interested, everybody who we’ve sent it to seem to like. They’ve got to see the product first and then we’ll get the investment.

“Our cricket friend invested because he knew us very well and we created a really good document.”

The 22-year-old added that the project has been surprisingly cheap. It would have cost the team around £15,000, but they’ve been able to keep costs down by selling a stake in the organisation.

With the internship, Flairshare and university all going on, I asked Stuart if his large work load had a detrimental effect on his studies.

He said: “It hasn’t impacted on me at all because I just had to do the odd document and keep the social media side of things up-to-date.

“Because I can’t code or do any of the design, I concentrate on that area.

“But when it launches I imagine I’ll be a lot busier, but only got three months of university left.”

I asked Stuart if he wanted to work full-time on Flairshare or concentrate his time on carving out a career in digital marketing.

He said: “I think it depends on how successful it is. If it isn’t at all, I can concentrate on getting a job. These things have a potential to go viral, so it could take off.

“If it does get successful, we could sell it to someone else further down the road.

“At the end of the day, having both the internship and start-up looks good on my CV.”

With a high youth and graduate unemployment and stories of highly qualified individuals having to stack shelves for years before they get their break, I wondered how Stuart feels about his job prospects when he graduates from university later this year.

He said: “I’m positive about securing a job. If I didn’t have the internship, I wouldn’t. Everyone’s been very helpful and because of that I’m not as worried as I would’ve been.

“I haven’t been applying for grad jobs because I’m not a fan of the process. The whole career path panned out before you’ve started doesn’t attract me and I’ve been concentrating on my studies.”

He added: “Obviously the economic climate isn’t great, but with the people I’ve met and my ability to use stuff like Twitter and LinkedIn to interact with companies, it’s made me quite optimistic.”

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience.

©2012 Ian Silvera

Libby Page is a 20-year-old fashion journalism student, author and a campaigns and policy co-ordinator at Intern Aware. Libby is in her final year at the London College of Fashion and has decided to concentrate on unpaid internships in the fashion industry for her documentary driven dissertation.

The young journalist was first attracted to the subject area because of her own experiences. Libby, originally from a small town in Dorset, found that she had been very lucky undertaking internships mostly in London thanks to her friends and family. The baking enthusiast wants other to share the same opportunities she has, whatever their economic background.

Libby said: “I’ve carried out seven internships all together. Even though none of them have been longer than a month, I’ve been able to rely on friends in London to help me survive on the unpaid internship circuit.”

Libby’s first placement was at a small, local paper based in London. As a keen 16-year-old, she told me that she had an enjoyable and exciting experience in the capital city. The young woman said: “It was great. I was even able to interview celebrities. One night I attended the BAFTAs and got to meet Rupert Everett on the red carpet.”

She added: “Because I was so young and inexperienced I didn’t know what to do at the time, but the other journalists pointed me in the right direction and explained that it was my turn to interview Rupert. I didn’t think too much about because I was just thrust into the interview.”

Libby spent two weeks at the publication and had a fantastic experience. Beyond interviewing A-list celebrities, the keen photographer also was given the chance to vox-pop London residents and produce some exciting content for the paper.

The 20-year-old said: “I was given a lot of responsibility by the editorial staff, and was even able to interview a business director. In all, it was a good, short period of my internship experience.

“I really wanted to stay, but, because they couldn’t offer me any money and I couldn’t afford to work for free, I couldn’t stay. It was a real shame. I understood their perspective – as a small paper they wouldn’t be able to pay for another staff writer.”

The only down side of the venture for Libby was having to stay with strangers to allow her to complete the placement. She explained: “I managed to live on a friend’s of a friend’s floor in London while holding down a Saturday job back home. At times it was quite stressful.”

The 20-year-old added: “I was lucky with the people who put me up. I couldn’t afford a hotel so, although it was a bit awkward at first, it was the best option for me.”

Libby bought her hosts some flowers at the end of her stay as she did not have much money to spare and embraced the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends.

Fashion hack

To further grasp what Libby’s internship journey was like, I asked the student about her internship at a magazine. She told me that her day involved a lot of menial tasks and quickly became boring.

The 20-year-old said: “A typical day involved unpacking clothes, which are sent from a PR agency, for the magazine’s ‘fashion cupboard’. As well as hanging them up, and sorting them out, I had to send them back to the PR agency.”

She added: “It’s more important than it sounds: If you don’t send them back, the agency will not post them to that publication ever again. I also assisted with photo-shoots by dressing the models and arranging the set, which is all directed by the magazine’s editor.”

Libby explained that that irony of it all was that on the other side of the process, on the PR side of things, there was probably another unpaid intern packing the clothes and sending them to her.

She said: “It’s annoying because, although it’s a boring job, it’s crucial for the fashion industry and, because of this fact, I feel I should’ve been paid a wage for my work. After all, if nobody sorted out the clothes, they wouldn’t get advertised and fashion magazines wouldn’t be able to fill their pages.”

Internship irritation

Libby made clear to me that as her placements added up she got to a stage where she was not progressing with her knowledge. The 20-year-old added: “An integral part of undertaking an internship is to develop and train your skills. I reached a point where I could easily carry out any tasks I was given by a publication.

“A lot of places want you to carry out menial tasks and eventually it just seemed like a waste of time for me to be there.”

I asked the young author what drew her to campaigning for the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for interns? Libby said that she joined campaign group Intern Aware because of her passion for worker’s rights and her own experience of work placements.

“Initially, I got in contact with Gus [Baker] and I explained to him that I wanted to get involved with the movement somehow,” Libby explained. “Eventually the opportunity arose for a part-time campaigns co-ordinator and I decided to grasp the opportunity and apply for the position.”

Libby added that her experience with the group has been really fulfilling so far and that she felt the small team are making a difference to how politicians and businesses leaders view perceive unpaid internships.

She said: “By interviewing interns, spreading the word and campaigning, it seems that the intern landscape is changing. In parliament, for instance, Hazel Blears has recently introduced a bill which will make it illegal to advertise for unpaid interns.

“Also, I’ve given evidence at the Low Pay Commission (LPC), who were investigating how to enforce the NMW law effectively.”

The photography enthusiast, however, did explain to me that it has not been very easy for her to get unpaid interns to talk to her in confidence. She said: “When I’m trying to speak people about their experiences they become terrified. I suppose they’re worried that potential employers will find out and they become too scared to say anything.”

Libby relates to the interns’ feelings because of her own experiences. In particular, the young woman wrote an article about unpaid internships for the news website the Huffington Post. She was worried about the consequences of ‘speaking out’ against the fashion and media industries, but thought it was vital to share her thoughts.

She said: “I was pretty apprehensive about the consequences. I knew that I could sort of get myself ‘black listed’, but I thought if I wanted to be a journalist it was important to reveal the truth to my readers and get the message out there.”

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience.

©2012 Ian Silvera

Getting sources in the middle of a disaster zone was once a problem, now, in a world where an extraordinary amount of people own smart phones, you can connect to victims instantaneously from almost anywhere on the globe.

But what software is on offer to help reporters find those affected? Well, simple searches on Twitter or social networking site Facebook may yield some contacts. However, you have to wade through an endless list of ‘junk leads’.  This time consuming process means that you will lose out against your competitors.

Another, and more favourable approach, would be to use a piece of technology like TweetDeck. The social media dashboard allows users to scan through tens of Facebook messages and Tweets. The application will speed up the process of filtering through mass Tweets and statuses, but what if you were able to geo-locate social media users? Surely that would be a much more efficient method? Well, the good news is that there are numerous websites out there that offer this opportunity.

Read more here.

Gus Baker is the co-founder of pressure group Intern Aware. The organisation, by lobbying politicians and evangelising the intern issue, calls for the reform of Britain’s internship system and asks the government to enforce National Minimum Wage (NMW) laws so ‘interns are paid the wages they deserve’.

Intern Aware was unofficially formed in early 2010 when University of Bristol graduates Gus Baker and Ben Lyons formed an anti-unpaid internship group on social networking site Facebook to raise awareness of the problem among their friends.

The campaigners have pushed back the popularity of unpaid internships in sections of our society like Westminster, but still face some stiff resistance from the ‘creative’ industries.

But how did it all begin? When did Gus and Ben come up with the idea for Intern Aware? Well, Gus told me that Intern Aware had its genesis in the outrage he felt toward our nation’s acceptance of unpaid internships.

“We just decided to do something about it,” the politics graduate explained. “It grew organically really – there were a lot of people out there who were really annoyed about working for free.”

He added: “As far as marketing, we didn’t have to do much. We just pushed it between our friendship networks.

“The group hit a nerve. It became very popular and led to Intern Aware’s more official inception.”

Gus, who now works for a trade union, decided that it was high time that everyone’s attention was drawn toward the ‘unfair system’ and so he decided to collect case studies among the Facebook group’s participants.

What he found was that hundreds of interns were trying to break into their dream careers by working for free. The real issue, Gus demonstrated to me, are those people who cannot afford an unpaid internship and, because of this hindrance, they cannot get onto the career ladder.

He added: “It’s simply not fair that some people should be able to have an internship and others are left out because it is not within their financial means”

Beyond detailing tens of case studies, Ben and Gus mapped out a detailed argument addressing why unpaid internships are legally and morally wrong – something nobody had done before, Gus explained to me.

The 22-year-old added: “We didn’t hear anyone in the media articulating our argument, so we decided to outline it for them. Now the issue of unpaid internships is popular with the press.”

From there, Gus and Ben used their contacts to help set up a professional website and hold small-scale campaigning sessions.

The duo’s efforts began to pay off in late 2010 when journalists started contacting them for quotes about internships. One of their first comments was published by an array of national newspapers after Labour MP Andy Burnham called on the BBC to stop their unpaid internship scheme.

“It really kicked off, though, when David Cameron and Nick Clegg started debating about social mobility and internships,” Gus pointed out. “It suddenly became one of the ‘hot topics’ in British politics and, as the only group advocating the NMW for interns, we became very popular.”

Too much, too young?

But with studying and living a hectic, undergraduate lifestyle, how did Gus and Ben find time to set up an impressive campaigning group? Well, Gus told me, it was not too problematic.

“I did a lot of work on Intern Aware during the holidays,” Gus explained. “We were fortunate enough to have a great network of kind friends who were able to assist us when we needed help, so it didn’t really affect my studies that much.”

He added: “Admittedly, a lot of stuff, like writing press releases, we didn’t know how to do, but we taught ourselves along the way.”

Intern Aware have recently stepped up a gear. Now the group have secured vital funding from research and development charity The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and they have also employed a Campaigns and Policy Co-ordinator, Libby Page.

“Yes, we’re looking to get bigger and better,” Gus said. “Me and Ben do a lot of policy related exercises, but Libby, who we employed because of her enthusiasm, has more of an external focus – dealing with the media and the like.”

Now a graduate, and with aspirations to become an employment barrister, I wondered what Gus’ daily regime was like?

He said: “It sounds pretty hectic, but I manage to balance it well. At the moment I work in a good position for a trade union three days per week and I spend two days at the Intern Aware office in Clapham.”

In his spare time the young campaigner studies towards a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) at the College of Law, London. Although this is an expensive enterprise, Gus said that living with his parents in South London was a great advantage and, with pay from Intern Aware and the trade union, he was able to keep afloat.

He added: “My experience with the campaign has really helped me grasp the fundamentals of English employment law.

“We even contacted some prestigious employment barristers about the NMW and unpaid internships. They kindly wrote us a template letter that our unpaid interns can use to demand their pay.”

The letters have been a great success. More than five disgruntled interns have claimed £13,000 from their past employees.

“They really focus the mind of the employers,” the law student explained. “We don’t usually get past that stage and the employers pay up, but we’ve had a few cases where they have gone to court.”

Gus added: “The problem is getting the interns to send the letters in the first place. We’ve had more than 50 interns contact us who want to be paid, but when it gets to the legal side of things they’re scared off.”

Gus said that he could understand the interns’ fear because they do not want to lose the reference they have worked free for and may get an undeserved reputation as a trouble maker.

The future

But what if you ban unpaid internships? Surely they will still exists and go ‘under the radar’ so even more people will miss out on the opportunity to break into their desired career?

“I don’t think that’s true,” Gus responded, “I sincerely believe that companies are not desperate to break the law – they’re just following the culture that they see around them.”

He added: “In reality It’s true that some internships may go ‘under the radar’, but the majority will not. At the end of the day it’s the law – all we are asking is that employers abide by NMW law and the Government enforces it.”

What about giving the interns the apprentice wage? Surely that is a happy medium for businesses, who do not want to risk money on hapless, unskilled employees, and interns who want to earn some money?

“No,” said Gus, “I don’t really buy that argument. An apprenticeship, legally speaking, is a very technical thing. You have to set up structured learning, provide a high quality of teaching and offer the apprentice, if they’ve completed the course, an NVQ qualification at the end of it all.”

He added: “Frankly, I don’t pull punches – the law is the law: you’ve got to pay people the money that they deserve.”

So, where does the story go from here for Intern Aware? Well, Gus explained that the group is looking to secure more funding from charitable organisations and he hopes to expand the group further.

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience. 

©2012 Ian Silvera

Amy is a public relations executive working and living in London, who hails from a small village in Northern Ireland. Before landing her current job, she carried out three internships – one paid and the others unpaid – in the capital city.

The 22-year-old decided to pursue a career in PR because she felt that her strengths lay in writing and communicating. Amy ruled-out another plausible vocation – journalism – because she thought it to be ‘too cut-throat’.

A University of Nottingham graduate, this determined young women was comfortable with living away from home for long periods of time and quickly adapted to a busy city lifestyle. But what drew her to England in the first place?

Amy said: “My main motivation for coming to here is that the universities are better.

“Most of my Northern Irish friends stayed and studied there,” Amy explained, “they were sort-of bribed – given cars to stay. For them, moving no longer was a priority, but some have travelled to Australia”

 She added: “I wanted to leave. Going back home was like going back in time.

 “Also the economy was really bad, so I thought it would be a good idea to get out. There weren’t many jobs around.”

Amy stressed that, unlike others, her family were very supportive of her decision and ambitions.  But surely it was a big risk travelling to London with no guarantee of work at the end of her internship cycle?

Well, Amy explained that she carried out the placements to bolster the strength of her CV.

 She said: “When I started off, I need the experience and, looking back, it was essential.

“I consider it a necessary evil — it’s just beneficial if you know more. If at 25, for example, I had a career change, I would have to go through the internship cycle again.”

To help save on money, she stayed with her boyfriend’s family in East London during her internships. Although Amy is very grateful for their generosity, but she understandably admits that this was not an ideal way to have to do things.

“I was living out of a suitcase,” Amy explained. “You’re never really completely settled.”

Her first placement was at a communications company that deals with maritime and survival technology companies. The placement lasted two weeks, but the University of Nottingham graduate thought it was tough at first. Amy enjoyed the placement and was given a lot of research responsibilities, but wanted to do more.

“I wanted in-depth works with the clients,” Amy explained. “But because I was only there on a temporary basis I knew I wouldn’t be able to.”

She added: “I was treated well and never had to stay past five o’clock. The only criticism I have is that the placement wasn’t structured, which would have helped.”

Amy was given a food allowance of £5 per day and a maximum of £7 per day for travel, an expense she almost always went over because she had to travel from Zone Four on the underground system to central London every day.

Amy went back home to Northern Ireland after finishing her first placement. Her parents didn’t want the ambitious young woman to sit around and do nothing so she went looking for work. Amy said she was a ‘bit down’ at this point and described her return as ‘taking a step back’.

She added:  “I’ve done all the work – A-levels and degree — and I’m applying to minimum wage jobs. It felt like I might have wasted my time. It was a bit depressing.”

When Amy was handing out her CV, employers were surprised. No, not because she had a degree, but because she was handing out a CV in the first place – it was not a common practice in her village.

Eventually the 22-year-old was able to secure a waitressing gig at a tiny café not far from where she lived.  There were only three other workers and Amy found it an awkward experience.

“One I had dropped out of university and the others were both 16,” Amy explained, “so we didn’t have too much in common.

“I think they thought ‘what’s she doing here?’. It was weird when I mentioned my university years.”

Amy continued her work at the café for a month, after which she returned to London to participant in another work placement. This time Amy worked at a world-renowned public relations firm, where she was given £40 per week travel expenses. Again, the American Studies graduate went over the limit and into her own pocket.

So, with so much financial stress, how did she keep going? Amy says that she did question herself.

She added: “When I was having a bad day I did query ‘why am I doing this?’ But it came down to the fact that I was trying to build a career for myself and that’s important for me.”

Amy enjoyed the work at the larger firm. She worked in the corporate section of the firm for four weeks. As a young woman she found it quite easy to fit in because the workforce mainly female, Amy estimated.

She added: “I didn’t have a need to prove myself because of the gender make-up of my colleagues, I felt equal and able to compete in that environment. In other words, I didn’t think there was a glass ceiling.”

The young woman began to become frustrated during the second placement. She was getting ‘everything thrown her way’, but become bored with the more menial tasks.

She explained: “I become a bit annoyed. On my second placement I was more knowledgeable of the industry and felt I was able to take on more challenging tasks.

“I wanted to work on some long-term projects and, even after I brought the issue up in my review, I still didn’t see many changes in the department. I suppose it’s because I wouldn’t be there for much longer, which is fair enough.”

The gender balance during Amy’s second placement contrasted heavily with her final and longest placement at two months. The final firm concentrated on the business and financial markets so it had a more ‘corporate atmosphere’, according to Amy.

She said: “It was made up of men and had a totally different feel to my other placements.”

The work, though, was similar. She drafted press releases, helped organise events and pitched stories to financial journalists via email and telephone. Amy said that most would not mind her phoning them, but others were not interested in the slightest.

“Most were friendly and would take the time to listen to me,” Amy said, “but others would just put the phone down on me. It depends how good the story is I suppose.”

What about the Irish accent, did that get in the way? No, says Amy.

She said: “It almost helps having an accent. When I talk to Scottish, Irish or American journalists they particularly like it and can relate to me in some way — It may give me an advantage.”

Amy decided enough was enough after her final placement. She felt that she had enough experience on her CV to secure a job with a PR firm and decided to go home and apply for jobs.

She said: “I noticed the difference when I worked with a colleague who was on her first internship. She needed to learn quite a bit and I thought that’s how internships do help.

“But after three, I was able take on a junior role.”

So, what did Amy conclude from her internship experience? She tells me that they are a ‘necessary evil’, but employers should pay the National Minim Wage. It would have been much more financially stressful for her if she did not have any friends to stay with in London during her placements.

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience. 

©2012 Ian Silvera

David Willetts has now joined a long list of politicians who refuse to admit the obvious. The comprehensive system has failed.

I was not surprised when the universities minister proposed that universities in England should “treat white working-class boys the same as ethnic minorities”.

In 2010, Lord Mandelson, then New Labour business secretary,argued that top universities should lower their entry requirements for disadvantaged applicants by as much as two A-level grades. He openly queried: “Why are we still making only limited progress in widening access to higher education to young people from poorer backgrounds?”

It seems that Willetts has come to the same, deluded conclusion: schools should not improve their performance, but universities should lower their grades.

Read more here.

Fiona is a public affairs intern at an environmental charity, working out of one of its regional offices in the South East. The 23-year-old graduated from the University of East Anglia this summer.

After studying politics for three years, this young, determined woman is hoping to break into an occupation related to her chosen and beloved subject. The ill health of the job market, however, has put Fiona’s plans on hold.

The Surrey resident told me that she decided to choose political science as a degree for a strange, yet brave reason.

“I didn’t really know anything about politics,” Fiona explained, “so I thought if I did a degree on it I would learn a lot more.”

Despite her initial lack of knowledge – and not even an A-level in the discipline – Fiona learnt quickly and thoroughly enjoyed her chosen field.

In her third year of university she was lucky enough to work with a Liberal Democrat MP on her dissertation. Although the university called this arrangement an ‘internship’, Fiona did not feel that way about the situation.

She said: “I met him every few months to explain the direction of my project. It certainly wasn’t an internship in the conventional sense. It was a report on a subject chosen by me and agreed with the MP. I received a lot of help from him and didn’t have to visit his office.”

In September, Fiona began her first internship with the environmental charity. At first Fiona tried to avoid applying for an unpaid internship, but as graduation came closer and job rejections piled up, the 23-year-old decided to grit her teeth and enter the internship market.

“I was quite lucky getting into an NGO, to be honest,” Fiona explained. “I was able to secure a placement straight after graduation. Some of my friends had to wait a while and some still haven’ got one.”

Fiona’s day is made up of menial tasks – usually answering emails and similar administrative duties. She has been surprised by her colleagues’ reaction to interns.

The Surrey resident said: “The interim head of the office treats me as if I were his personal assistant.

“Once he made me go through his email chain to find a statement he had made to someone to prove that he had sent it. I thought this was silly – he could be doing something like that himself.”

Fiona also had to put letters into a template for the senior staff member, which he then signs off, thus making the whole process more time consuming than if he learnt the process himself.

She added: “The attitude towards interns is 50/50 in the office. Some of my co-workers are very supportive and help me out if I ever need a hand. Others, however, are very dismissive and negative towards me.

“Perversely, one of the charity’s old interns, now a paid member of staff, looks down on me — as if I have to go through the same initiation as him.”

It has not been all bad, though. Fiona has travelled to London for the charity and receives a weekly personal meeting to discuss her progress and an opportunity to voice any grievances she has.

The 23-year-old also receives £5 per day for lunch and her travel expenses – petrol or train tickets are paid for by the charity. Fiona estimates that this comes to more than £50 a week.

How does Fiona afford the internship? Well, Fiona explains that she used to work at the Starbucks. However, because of the stress and lack of personal life, she quit the job.

“I was working a seven-day-week, “explained Fiona, “It was exhausting – I would just sleep and work.”

She added: “I definitely had a negative effect on my personal life. I didn’t really have any time to meet my friends.

At this point Fiona began to resent her time spent at the charity.

She said: “It wouldn’t have mattered if I was being paid. You just suck it up like anyone else, but I wasn’t, so it became an enormous strain.”

The 23-year-old was not alone, though. Many of her colleagues at her local Starbucks were undergraduates or had just finished their studies. Like Fiona they were subsidising internships with work at the coffee chain.

Fiona has wanted to carry out others internships, but they were unwilling to pay her any expenses, never mind the national minimum wage (NMW). A MP based in the North, for instance, would not offer her anything, despite asking the young woman to travel hundreds of miles.

At the moment Fiona is applying anxiously for graduate jobs, but feels she may have to bite the bullet and endure another internship.

“There’s a limit to the internships I can do, “Fiona explained, “I have a finite amount of money and I’ve been very lucky that my mother has been able to support me this far.”

Her art graduate friends are in a similar position – stuck, working in the retail sector. On the other hand, her science graduate peers have been able to secure well-paid positions.

Fiona’s family and friends remain supportive, but clearly her charity internship has taken a toll on the 23-year-old.

“I can’t wait to leave now,” she tells me, “it was enjoyable at first, but now I’ve had enough of it.”

Fiona does not regret that she went to university, though. She feels that it is unfair to offer unpaid internships.

She concluded: “They should give interns the NMW or, failing that, some expenses.”

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience. 

©2012 Ian Silvera

Christmas and comedy have a well-established relationship. Morecambe and Wise re-runs, naughty cracker jokes, an endless stream of comedy DVD adverts. The relationship between comedy and philosophy is less well known.

But comedy has occasionally drawn inspiration from philosophy. Reaching into the archive, there’s Monty Python of course and Beyond the Fringe, and more recently The Simpsons and Ricky Gervais (UCL philosophy graduate, class of 1983) have explored explicitly philosophical issues.

But these examples are one-sided: comedians commenting on philosophy. What about the other way around? What do philosophers say about comedy?

Read more here. 

James Brown, who is on a placement year during his design engineering degree at the University of Bristol, has had a positive experience of internships.

The Sterling man is a serial intern. He has clocked up four internships and is only 20 years old.

James, however, did stress at the start of our interview that all of his placements have been paid positions and, if they were unpaid, he doubts he would have been able to complete so many.

The young man decided from an early age that he wanted to become an engineer.

At 17, after finishing his highers, he started his first internship at Wood Group, a global leader in the gas and engineering sector.

The placement was organised by the Engineering Council and the company paid for his living expenses as well as providing James with a generous salary.

There was one catch, though – James had to move from his family home to Aberdeen. The engineering enthusiast did not let that faze him.

He said: “It wasn’t too bad. I knew some of my friends were going to Aberdeen University so I was able to met up with them and go out.”

James stated that his experience at Wood Group was very enjoyable and he told me that he even represented the organisation in a corporate decathlon, which was apparently highly competitive.

He added: “It’s the best placement that I’ve had. It might be because that was my first placement, but I was given a lot of freedom and responsibility within the company – especially for someone with little experience.

“The only down side, if there is one, is that that internship wasn’t structured well. But I thrived in that environment and always took the initiative.”

The ballroom dancer had lots of access within the gas giant and managed to wangle his way offshore during his time at Wood Group.

“Overall the placement was very good, the people were very generous and I had a great time,” James nostalgically explained.

Explosions and stuff

Encouraged by his experiences at Wood Group, James managed to secure another paid internship with a Bristol based company who specialise in defence engineering.

This time the University of Bristol helped organise his placement and James was able to stay in his university residence that summer while interning.

“I was only there for the summer so it was hard to get involved with any long-term projects,” he said. “I quite enjoyed it, not as much as Wood Group, but I did get to learn about explosions, which was cool.”

James went onto explain that the employer was very flexible and, as long as he completed his work, he could start late into the mornings.

He added: “The manager was a nice elderly gentleman. He took me under his wing and I was allowed to look into some odd projects. I was even able to get a swim in before work everyday”

After getting a taste of the engineering world James thought he would try something new.

He joked to me: “What could be as ill-thought of in the public eye as the defence and oil industries?”

The answer: investment banking.

High pay, low enthusiasm

The following summer James started an incredibly paid internship at one of the world’s leading investment banks with offices in Canary Wharf.

“I was on £42,000 pro rota, the salary was unbelievable,” James said. “At 20 years of age I was in the top 10 per cent of earners in the country.”

James was baffled by some of the analysts’ worries. They moaned to James that they were not earning enough.

He said: “It was a quite hierarchical structure so people were always aware of what the person above them earned – I think that’s why it was such an issue for them.”

James explained that he did not enjoy the work at the investment bank. Most of it involved sifting through company reports, investigating pension deficits and crunching numbers. The Scots man likened it to accounting.

The most frustrating part of the job for James was the way work was delegated.

He said: “It was a strange world. There were just so many levels of people. For example, if a manager type had to pass some work on, it would have to go through four different levels of underlings.”

He added: “The result was that I was sometimes passed something that was meant to be completed a week ago, but because of the clumsy delegation system I had to do it there and then.

“You were only allowed to talk to someone on you ‘level’. So as an intern I had to talk to a level one analyst or another intern if I needed help.”

On a positive note James said that the internship was a lot more structured than the ones he had previously undertaken.

“There was work dedicated to the interns, it wasn’t like they had to make room for us,” James explained. “I also had on-the-job training, including breakfast meetings to discuss our work with colleagues.”

James said one of the downsides was of his own making.

He had decided to move into a student flat during the placement and, students being students, James soon found himself being regularly awoken when his flat mates came bursting in at the early hours of the morning after a rowdy night out.

He added: “I should’ve got a place at some student halls. Since it was the summer holidays, I wouldn’t have been disturbed.”

Looking back on the investment banking internship, James explained he was no happier in London on £42,000 than in Aberdeen on £20,000.

He said: “Money is a plus, yeah, but after a certain point I don’t think it’s that important.

“I want to live comfortably, the average starting salary for engineering students is around £30,000, but I also want to enjoy my work – I wouldn’t have been able to do that at the investment bank.”

What next?

James is currently on a placement year with Atkins, an engineering company based in Bristol.

The young man told me he is sure that he wants to go into engineering or maybe even start his own business in the future, but he has been frustrated by the engineering industry’s lack of enthusiasm regarding recruiting graduates.

“When it comes to the investment banks and accountancy firms they’re all over campus,” James said. “Even if you say you’re doing engineering, they say ‘well, you can work for us for a bit, earn some money, and then go into engineering’. They are very persuasive.”

He added: “The engineering firms are absent. It’s always in the news about STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) subjects, but there are only a certain amount of university places available.

“The problem is that most engineering graduates don’t go into engineering – the financial firms snap them up.

“If the engineering industry is bothered about the problem, they need to start putting more money into recruitment.”

This is an extract from the Internship Stories project.

The project aims to share the experiences of interns so that people can gain a better understanding of what it is to be an intern.

I am currently looking for interviewees, so get in touch if you have had an internship.

I am interested to hear your story whatever your experience. 

©2012 Ian Silvera