At this time of year, you might be thinking about how to make the most of your summer break. It can be an ideal time to get work experience before the next academic year begins.
Work experience not only looks good on your CV or LinkedIn profile, it can also help you:
Gain a competitive edge when applying for graduate jobs or further study. It can also be a requirement for some careers.
Develop skills and confidence, gain insights, and build your professional network.
Decide whether a career area is right for you.
But where to start? It may feel like many internship deadlines have passed. Or perhaps you want to know: “how am I supposed to get experience without previous experience?” It can feel like employers ask for lots of skills and experiences to apply for their internships.
The IKEEP programme offers students the opportunity to gain intrapreneurial training and engage with industry on knowledge exchange projects through a paid team placement with an SME.
Three undergraduates, Jack, (Economics and Management), Olivia (History and Spanish) and Kristina (Politics) recently completed one of our projects with Bristol Hub.
We spoke to them about what they have gained from the experience.
Meet the distinguished panel of judges who selected the winners of this year’s Outstanding PLUS Awards.
The OPA celebrates Bristol PLUS Award students who have made a significant change or impact in their PLUS Award activity. There are eight award categories, with just one winner per category.
Bristol PLUS Award achiever and Outstanding PLUS Award nominee Violet Allmark achieved her 70 hours of PLUS activity through working as a freelance drag performer and taking on a student leadership role as chair of Bristol Theatre Department Society InterACT.
Violet was a freelance performer with drag cabaret ‘The House of Savalon’ during their residency at award-winning Bristol LGBTQ+ venue Queenshilling, proud sponsors of Bristol University LGBTQ+ society.
Violet performing as Etta Boy, at The House of Savalon
‘My freelance work, as part of the House of Savalon’s three month residency at Queenshilling, gave me the opportunity to develop my artistic costume-making practice, and improve my time management and organisational skills. I spent hours preparing for my acts: sourcing, making and editing my own costumes, props and audio.
In addition, the regular feedback sessions enhanced my personal reflection skills on my own performances as well as my communication skills through constructive feedback
The House of Savalon at the Queen Shilling
Kickstarting my drag career this year has led to such amazing performance opportunities, such as performing last week before Divina de Campo at the Creative Youth Network Station and even internationally in Woody’s Bar Toronto, where I was tipped during my performance by a queen recently announced to be on Season 3 of Canada Drag Race and I was even in the presence of the show’s ‘version’ of Ru Paul: Brook Lynn Hytes.’
Violet also developed new skills and experience by chairing the committee of InterAct, the theatre department’s society.
Hi, I’m Emily! I am a third-year law student and I recently completed a project placement with PyTerra, after following a two-week Intrapreneurial course with IKEEP. I heard about the IKEEP training programme in the Careers Service newsletter, and it seemed like a great way to get interesting work experience. I got offered a 4-week work placement at PyTerra, which is a local ‘FinTech’ (Financial Technology) start-up and app where investors, developers, grant givers and corporates can collaborate to make low carbon housing projects feasible. Essentially, PyTerra’s mission is to generate finance for aggregated low-carbon projects. (more…)
It was my great honour to undertake a two-month internship at Bristol Braille Technology (BBT) under the SME Internship Scheme. My position at BBT was Braille and Employment Researcher Intern. My main duty was to conduct research on how braille promotes employment and improves the lives of the visually impaired. My work was mostly done remotely.
Working for BBT, I learned workplace etiquette and gained lots of new skills, including working to a high standard. As a non-native English speaker, my English has improved tremendously during this internship. My colleagues and supervisors are all native English speakers, and, frankly, it was a little difficult for me to keep up with them when I first started my internship. I quickly got over this problem with a lot of English practice.
Bristol Braille Technology logo.
At the same time, the research skills I learned at university came in handy and my time management skills have also been enhanced. This valuable experience has laid a solid foundation for my future career.
All in all, as a visually impaired person, I have benefited a lot from this internship, it really boosts my CV and I have become more confident. At work, I didn’t feel any discrimination and I wasn’t treated differently from anyone else. I sincerely hope that more of my peers will benefit from this scheme in the future.(more…)
There are 10 Awards on offer and each one is partnered with a prominent graduate recruiter who provides a fantastic prize for the winner including paid internships, trips abroad and other exclusive opportunities.
To have made it to the final stage for the award is an incredible achievement, each award this year had 100s of applications and finalists made it through the initial application, psychometric tests, interviews and assessment centres.
We are very proud to introduce *Drum roll please* our 4 fantastic University of Bristol finalists:
Worried your CV is looking a bit bare? Or wondering how to explain a period when you weren’t working or studying? We’ve collected some of our top tips on tackling gaps on your CV, so you can feel confident whatever you’re applying for.
Hi, my name is Yanan. 
