Hi, I’m Noah and I am a third-year Business student who took part in the Bath Insights programme last summer. In this article, I will be discussing what I did during my Bath Insights internship and how I got a part-time job at the university on completion of it.
What did I do during my Bath Insights Internship and what is my part-time role?
During my time as a Bath Insights intern, I helped the Doctoral Development Team in the Doctoral College by helping deliver events over the summer. The Doctoral Development team focus on supporting doctoral students’ learning throughout their time at the University of Bath. During the summer, there are two big events the Doctoral Development team delivers to celebrate their students: the Doctoral Celebration Evening and the Doctoral Festival of Ideas. My role was helping with tasks from registration, to printing the necessary paperwork, to organising and running a quiz - basically being an extra pair of hands so all the events run smoothly.
Upon completion of my internship, I was offered the opportunity to work in the Doctoral Development Team on a part-time basis as a Doctoral Training and Projects Coordinator. In this role, I have been given the responsibility of managing communications to all doctoral students by letting them know what workshops are going on, overseeing attendance, and communicating with the facilitators of the workshops.
Top tips for the internship
It was a great opportunity to be offered the chance to come back and work for the same team. To help you, I will share some useful tips for the Bath Insights programme based on my experience.
Tip 1: Be reliable
As straightforward as this may sound, it is important to be reliable. This means getting to work on time, doing tasks on time, and having good organisation skills. For many of you, this will be your first work experience, and it can be challenging to figure out. For example, with keeping organised with tasks, I found it useful to have a Word document with all the tasks I had been asked to do and highlight them once they were done. Without being reliable, I doubt I would’ve been asked to work part-time.
Tip 2: Say yes
Some of the most interesting work that I did during my time on the Bath Insights internship was work beyond the scope of the initial role. This included activities like analysing feedback and data from surveys of the events and then helping with the reporting of this information. This taught me useful data analysis skills which will apply to pretty much any role I will do in the future. Saying yes to tasks (within reason of course) opens you up to so many more possibilities during your internship and will reflect positively on you too!
Tip 3: Get to know your team on a personal level
One aspect that I loved about the internship was getting to know my team on a personal level. As much as the internship is a great place to gain experience, it is also a great way of building connections, and I found being open was the best way. It allowed me to ask questions about life which I wouldn't have been able to ask to people of my age but also my team asking questions to me, as an undergraduate student in a team which predominantly dealt with PhD students.
Of course, everyone's experience will be different, but I hope you find these insights useful to take forward into your Bath insights journey along with any other journey you may embark upon over the coming years.
What’s next for me?
Sadly, I will be leaving my part-time role at the Doctoral College at the end of January, as I will be undertaking a 6-month placement with Amazon. During the interview process with Amazon, I shared my experience of the Bath Insights programme and how this led to me getting a part-time job, which played a part in me getting the placement. This was an experience which I also shared when applying for academic exchange (taking place during the next academic year) which helped me get my first-choice university, York University in Toronto, Canada. There is no doubt that the Bath Insights programme played a large part in unlocking these incredible opportunities for me.
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