When I began working in my current role in 2012, our focus was on placing students directly in a workplace, believing this to be the best way for them to gain meaningful work experience. Fast forward to 2021 and how times have changed!

According to the office for National Statistics:

Furthermore, by 1^st October 2020 an article in The Guardian online suggested that 24% of those in employment are now working exclusively from home – including Yours Truly – as I write this I ponder the future of employment and the suggestion that the fallout from this virus has not all been totally bad….

There may be some benefits of this new approach for our student and graduate population: Large corporates, particularly within the service industries, have responded promptly to their own need to have, to coin a much over-used phrase, ‘oven ready’ graduates, eager to hit the ground running in their careers following graduation. Therefore, it has benefited them to provide online, or virtual, internships during 2020 to ensure a continuous throughput of talent into their organisations.

Virtual internships, according to Rate my Placement, can take two forms: They can constitute a structured introduction to a business and its operations, such as those developed by the likes of Microsoft or Google, organisations which understandably already have the infrastructure in place to facilitate remote working. Alternatively, other organisations, such as the multi-national accountancy firms or banks, are providing short modular training online internships to introduce aspects of their business to ever-keen undergraduates.

There are huge benefits to be reaped from such models: They are substantially more inclusive than their in-person predecessors in that anyone can undertake them, they are often self-directed and can be undertaken at the intern’s own pace - provided they have a good WIFI connection, of course. (Although any of us who regularly holds online meetings will know that working online at home can come at a cost – how many times have we not quite caught what the speaker was saying, or forgotten to press the ‘mute’ button when roaring at a family member to put the kettle on…?)

However other, arguably more inventive, models have also caught my attention, such as the virtual internships being offered by organisations working with international governments on projects to support local vulnerable populations. These had been particularly attractive to students as they involved spending the summer abroad and who wouldn’t want to experience that? However, they have efficiently transitioned to a virtual offer – the projects remain the same, the interns gain equally valuable skills and hundreds of students have taken part. These ranged from producing marketing materials for a bee farm to assessing the supply chain used by turmeric farmers to increase efficiency, all of enormous benefit the local area.

Another model which has increased in popularity is the research internship – we in FST are no strangers to this model as many of our projects have operated in this arena for some years. These internships were always pretty much virtual, with our students, experts already in research techniques, being given a project based on specific research needs which could be undertaken in their own time. In these times when businesses are reassessing their markets, models and future direction many (particularly small businesses) have already approached me with their ideas around what an intern could do for them – and research such as carbon footprint measuring, or industry standards exploration is in abundance for those students seeking research experience.

Last but by no means least are the opportunities around befriending which are crucial to so many folk just now. Predominantly volunteering positions, these offer valuable support to vulnerable individuals at this difficult time and can help students seeking a career in the public sector, health or social care arenas to develop key skills around empathy and cultural or social awareness. These can also be undertaken virtually and can make a difference to the experience of both the client and the support worker. It’s a huge positive to know that volunteer organisations have been inundated with offers of help yet the specific skills of our students are still very much in demand.

The word ‘agile’ has been much used to describe how businesses need to react to changing times and circumstances: Never before in my lifetime has this seemed so important. That’s why it’s so encouraging to see that our students – and the organisations they aspire to work within – have risen to the economic challenge of this pandemic and devised new and innovative ways of working, elements of which I suspect will remain long after 2021 is a distant memory.

Related Blogs

• 

  Recycling Additive manufacturing waste: Shred-it, Dry-it and Extrude-it

• 

  A Sustainable Love for Chemistry

• 

  The Greater Manchester AI Foundry

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed by our bloggers and those providing comments are personal, and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lancaster University. Responsibility for the accuracy of any of the information contained within blog posts belongs to the blogger.