The project
I asked Joshua to research and produce a comprehensive Student Campaigning Toolkit: a practical guide that takes a student from a vague sense that something is wrong all the way through to running a strategic, effective campaign. It was a substantial brief, requiring independent research, clear structure, and the judgement to translate campaigning theory into something a first-time student campaigner could actually use.
What was achieved
The result is a polished resource covering the full campaign lifecycle, including:
- Defining the problem and setting SMART objectives, with tools such as a problem tree and a decision flowchart for whether a campaign is even the right approach
- Choosing a strategy, from awareness-raising to lobbying, support-building and pressure
- Building and coordinating a campaign team
- Detailed, step-by-step guides to specific tactics: petitions, open letters, meetings with decision makers, letter-writing campaigns, vigils, demonstrations and protests
- Bath-specific guidance throughout, referencing B&NES Council processes, local press, campus locations and our own SUmmit decision-making route
- A dedicated section on making campaign events accessible
Crucially, this is not a one-off output. It is a permanent, reusable asset now available to support campaigning across our membership of roughly 22,000 students.
Fresh perspectives and skills
For The SU, the single most important thing an intern could bring was the student perspective itself. The SU exists for one purpose: students making student life happen. A campaigning toolkit written entirely by staff risked being technically sound but disconnected from how students actually think, organise and engage. We wanted the resource shaped by direct input from the student experience, so that it would be genuinely understandable, accessible and, above all, applicable.
That is exactly where Joshua made the difference. We did not want a document that stopped at theory. We wanted a practical guide, and it took a fresh student perspective to get us there. Joshua helped ground the toolkit in the realities of student life at Bath, shaping the language, examples and structure so they would land with the students the resource is designed for. It made a huge difference to the final product.
Value against the investment
Put simply, without this support the toolkit would not exist. There was no capacity within the team to take on a project of this scale alongside our day-to-day work, so hosting an intern was the difference between the resource being made and it remaining an idea we never got to.
The deeper value, though, is in what the right intern brings: a fresh perspective, and a talented, motivated student genuinely willing to support your work. That combination lets you deliver things you could not otherwise deliver and often deliver them better. For any department weighing up the investment, that, for me, is the heart of it.
What I learned as a manager
Managing Joshua taught me as much as it delivered for the team. A few things stood out:
- A clear, well-scoped brief at the start matters enormously. Giving Joshua a strong sense of direction, while leaving genuine room to shape the work, set the project up to succeed.
- Interns achieve far more when trusted with ownership of something real, rather than a list of small, disconnected tasks. Handing over a meaningful project brought out Joshua's best work.
- Regular, light-touch check-ins kept a large piece of work on track and on time without slipping into micromanagement.
- There is real reward in trusting a student with responsibility and watching them rise to it. Good management here is as much about creating the conditions for someone to do their best work as it is about oversight.
Would I recommend it?
Without hesitation. Hosting a Bath Insights intern let us deliver something meaningful that we simply did not have the capacity to produce otherwise, while giving a student real, portfolio-worthy experience and responsibility. For any department weighing up whether it is worth budgeting for an intern, my experience is a straightforward yes.
Nirvan Abedi
Democracy & Change Manager
Students' Union
Respond
