Liz Emerson announces new undergraduate placements at IF for 2015, and sets this in the context of IF’s policy towards work experience and internships
IF has secured two Undergraduate Research Awards from Oxford University’s Careers Service, for the second year running, in order to be able to offer a funded placement to two Oxford University undergraduate students during 2015.
The Awards mean that IF is able to offer placements for up to six weeks in order for successful candidates to be fully immersed in our work.
IF’s policy is to ensure that students participate in all our work by shadowing senior members of staff and attending internal and external meetings wherever possible. Previous students have researched and submitted evidence for government consultations, undertaken original research, attended parliamentary events and had their work published by IF. Our website attracts more than 1 million hits annually.
IF believes that work experience is invaluable in giving young people a glimpse of the inner workings of organisations and industries in which they hope to start a career. Where IF is unable to secure funding we limit work experience to no more than three weeks in duration and will only accept work experience applications from students in full time education who are able to take up the placement during vacation periods.
We believe this is the fairest way for a charity to support the important work of anti-internship organisations such as InternAware and Interns Anonymous in fighting exploitative unpaid internships, many of which use internships to replace a paid member of staff.