Tag Archives: southwest

Student Case Study: Research Intern – Decolonising Environmental Science

Degree subject, Information Technology, Internship Schemes, Science, Student Campus Partnership (SCP), , , ,

Name of Student:  Burhanuddin Anis

Degree Subject:  Natural Sciences

Job Title: SCP6014 Research Intern – Decolonising Environmental Science

Company Name:  University of Exeter

Type of Internship:  Student Campus Partnerships (SCPs)  

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

Putting together python script to automate the scraping of scopus exports for key data involved in a systematic literature review pertaining to parachute science, particular the author affiliations and sites of study of various paleo-ecological studies.

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

Produces a fully documented and functioning script that automated a large part of the literature review, going through about 8000 results automatically, saving manual work.

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

Often the code didn’t quite work the way we intended, returning incorrect data. Overcame these by sharing with my supervisor and co-worker, who helped troubleshoot and come up with lateral solutions to the problems.

Skills Learnt: 

  • Focus on Goals and Outcomes
  • IT
  • Researching

Attributes Developed:

  • Logical thinking
  • Independence
  • Work Ethic

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

Overall, my internship experience was excellent. I learnt a lot about working in an active research team, as I was able to see a project idea go from just that, to actively developing a methodology with my co-worker and supervisor, into having a large role in implementing this methodology. I greatly improved my confidence in communicating with a team and also greatly enhanced my knowledge of data analytics in python programming. I thought that it was particular good that I was able to actively suggest ideas to the development of the project, I felt that I was genuinely an equal contributor to the goal and this made the internship that much more fulfilling. Thomas Roland was a great supervisor and I’m grateful for his guidance and his willingness to trust my skill set!

Student Case Study: Science Research Assistant (Endangered Species)

Biosciences, Degree subject, Internship Schemes, Science, Student Campus Partnership (SCP), , , ,

Name of Student:  Amy Goymer

Degree Subject:  Biological sciences

Job Title: Science Research Assistant (Endangered Species) SCP 5967

Company Name:  University of Exeter

Type of Internship:  Student Campus Partnerships (SCPs)  

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

Carry out laboratory work to obtain DNA sequences for meat sold as ‘eel’ to evaluate whether endangered species were being utilised in eel sushi products. Then collate the data to synthesise a paper for publication.

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

Analysing enough samples to significantly contribute to the global collection (more than doubling it!) which will allow a much more rounded view of eel trade globally.

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

Some samples were hard to collect usable data from due to being degraded by frying, cooking etc. But you just have to be persistent and go right from the beginning again and then some will just have a lucky round and give you results.

Skills Learnt: 

  • Ability to Work Under Pressure
  • Organisation
  • Leadership
  • Strategic Planning
  • Decision Making

Attributes Developed:

  • Logical thinking
  • Commercial Awareness
  • Confidence
  • Independence

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

This internship experience not only furthered my laboratory experience and was a good thing to talk about moving forward in my career, but also made me feel like I was contributing to global science as an individual rather than just learning things as a student. I also hope to publish the paper I wrote as part of the internship with help from my supervisor, which is a really cool outcome to reward the hard work put in. Ultimately, it was great to get paid for something that really interesting, fun, and allowed me to contribute to science.

Student Case Study: University of Exeter with Diego Marmsoler

Computer Science, Information Technology, Internship Schemes, Mathematics, Student Campus Partnership (SCP), , , ,

Name of Student:  Teddy Cameron-Burke

Degree Subject:  Computer Science and Mathematics

Job Title: SCP 6021 Research Intern

Company Name:  University of Exeter with Diego Marmsoler

Type of Internship:  Student Campus Partnerships (SCPs)  

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

Formal verification and automation of automata

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

Verified all machines necessary, and personally learned the isabelle programming language

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

Steep learning curve to learn isabelle, which was overcome via example problems

Skills Learnt: 

  • Teamwork and Collaboration
  • Organisation
  • Leadership

Attributes Developed:

  • Creative thinking
  • Independence
  • Professionalism

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

Overall the internship was fantastic, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the mathematics of computer science and or getting into cyber security. From the internship I have many new contacts within the university, and have managed to organise a third year project with the significant advantage of already knowing the programming language. My supervisor, Diego Marmsoler, was excellent at being on hand to deal with any problems I had during the internship and was very welcoming to me and my peers. The internship was challenging but that was what made solving each problem that much more rewarding!

Employer Case Study: Devon County Council

Administration, Advertising, Marketing and PR, Employer Feedback, Graduate Business Partnership (GBP), Internship Schemes, , , ,

Name of Organisation: Devon County Council – North Devon AONB team

Name of Employer: Jenny Carey-Wood

Job Title: AONB Manager

Internship Scheme used: Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) , 

Feedback:

“Our intern delivered such a varied range of tasks in just five months, working with a large number of colleagues and partner organisations to deliver concrete results in terms of 2 reports, 4 videos and all our social media.

It was a very positive experience and I am looking forward to recruiting another intern in the Autumn. We were impressed by the flexibility, hard work and skill set of the intern, her willingness to take on everything we offered her, juggling deadlines, excellent communication and joint working skills. The internship offered an opportunity to focus on and deliver key tasks that made a real difference to our work. Seeing our service through the eyes of a young person in their twenties has been hugely helpful.”

Employer Case Study: University of Exeter – MCRG

Administration, Advertising, Marketing and PR, Education, Teaching and Research, Employer Feedback, Graduate Business Partnership (GBP), Internship Schemes, , , ,

Name of Organisation: University of Exeter – MCRG

Name of Employer: Louise Vennells

Job Title: Senior Press and Media Manager

Internship Scheme used: Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) , 

Feedback:

“Our intern was instrumental to ensuring that our on-campus graduation celebration ran smoothly, in a covid era. She oversaw the complicated process of getting GDPR permission from graduating students, and managed our social media content, which saw particularly high levels of engagement. She has overseen a number of stories that have achieved media coverage, and increased our both the volume and quality of our output across our social media channels. Our intern has been a highly valued member of the team.

She launched and managed a new-look staff newsletter, using a new programme that allows for a more flexible format. She managed the transition ably and professionally, showing both creativity and attention to detail.

Our intern is highly capable and organised, and has been a pleasure to work with. She has progressed well in areas including media understanding and news writing, and has become a productive and creative member of the team.”

Employer Case Study: University of Exeter Library

Administration, Education, Teaching and Research, Employer Feedback, Graduate Business Partnership (GBP), Internship Schemes, Libraries and Heritage, , , ,

Name of Organisation: University of Exeter, University Library

Name of Employer: Philip Barraclough

Job Title: Library Digital Content Administrator

Internship Scheme used: Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) , 

Feedback:

“Having a Graduate Business Partner as part of our team meant that we were able to capitalise on their youth and enthusiasm. They brought a fresh perspective to our work, as well as the insights into student life and behaviour that come with having so recently been a student themselves. Their enthusiasm for all areas of Library work enabled them to complete routine tasks which allowed more senior staff to concentrate on designing and developing services and resources. But at the same time, our Graduate Business Partner was involved in these same discussions and contributed interesting insights and perspectives. Much of the Library’s social media activity this year has only been made possible the excellent and enthusiastic work of our Graduate Business Partner. Similarly, we have only been able to expand our accessibility guidance and provision by recruiting a Graduate Business Partner who was already familiar with this area and willing to collaborate with other Library staff to develop this. Whilst we may not be able to further expand this guidance and activity once our Graduate Business Partner leaves us, nevertheless without them we wouldn’t even have been able to make a start.

Apart from confidently independently managing their own day-to-day tasks to free up the workload of managers to concentrate on managing things, the e-book guidance webpage and library accessibility webpage on our library website only exist thanks to the hard work and contribution of our Graduate Business Partner. Similarly the increased social media content the library is posting each week is also a major achievement of our Graduate Business Partner. Finally, our Graduate Business Partner authored a blog post that was hosted on the Study Zone blog, something we have struggled to achieve in the past. They have lots of rather visible achievements to show for their time with us!

Overall, I would say the experience of having a Graduate Business Partner has been excellent and I would have regretted not recruiting one in hindsight. The only downside is that we were not able to make their contract permanent! Otherwise, I would have loved to have kept them on as a permanent Library staff member. The experience has been so positive that I certainly consider recruiting other Graduate Business Partners in the future with a view to hopefully retaining them as a permanent Library staff member.”

Student Case Study: Communications Coordinator and Research Assistant (UofE)

Access to Internships (A2I), Advertising, Marketing and PR, Degree subject, Internship Schemes, Psychology, , , ,

Name of Student:  Poppy Oliva Mary Cheeseman

Degree Subject:  Applied Psychology (Clinical) MSci

Job Title: Communications Coordinator and Research Assistant

Company Name:  University of Exeter

Type of Internship: Access to Internships (A2I)

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

As Communications Coordinator:

– Assisted with focus group discussions and communications with community partners, for a new smartphone study involving homeless individuals (SPACES study)

As Research Assistant:

– Contribute to the design of a smartphone application for tracking daily life activities and experiences among homeless individuals (SPACES study)
– Preparing study materials (including questionnaires, participant instructions; SPACES study and Affect Retrospect study)
– Writing and creating materials for the ethics application of the SPACES study
– Organizing and coding study data, assisting with data management (SPACES study and Affect Retrospect study)
– Collecting and organising research papers to include in a literature review study about the discrimination machine learning can provide between speech samples of participants with different neurocognitive disorders

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

First, I created two documents containing organisations relating to homeless charities from an extensive search. In addition to gathering potential collaborators who are interested in the field of homelessness from all universities in London and academics at the University of Exeter.
I worked heavily on the ethics application for the SPACES study, including creating supporting documents such as the information sheet, consent form and debriefing form.
I conducted my own analysis of data from a previous study with the aim to examine this data for conclusions that can be drawn from this data and how this may inform future projects.
I also created a large bank of extracted research articles to be included in a literature review related to how machine learning can be used to detect features of various neurocognitive disorders based on spoken language.
I would definitely say I developed greater confidence in approaching research and working in a scientific and academic field. Going into the internship I was a little overwhelmed by the tasks I would have to do and I remember doubting whether my input would be up to the standard my internship supervisor was expecting, but throughout the internship she provided excellent advice, encouragement and support that greatly improved my experience.
I also was able to improve my report writing skills and analytic skills in a much more practical and applied manner, Throughout my degree I use these skills but they are restricted to coursework that is set that doesn’t really apply well to the context of what I would be expected to write if I were to actually be working in a research or scientific field. This internship provided me the chance to actually do this which was a valuable learning experience.
I would say that my biggest achievement for this internship was simply knowing that I can do well in this type of work. I was hesitant to even apply for the funding to do this internship as I wasn’t sure how up to the task I would be, but I feel I performed well and that my work and contributions were to a good standard.

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

On a psychological level I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to complete the work at a satisfactory level. I overcame this by ignoring my misgivings and just attempting the work as best as I can and being prepared to accept any and all feedback and ensure I made the internship a learning experience and used the feedback I received to improve. I ensured I actually paid attention to positive feedback rather than glossing over it to just look at the improvements so that I would actually overcome my lack of confidence.

I found that the experience helped me with clarity of communication. My task was to draw conclusions from a pre-existing dataset my internship supervisor had collected which presented a challenge of organising this information in a way where another person could read my conclusions and how I’d arrived at them. I had to think carefully about the process I had taken to the data and think about how I could describe this process simply and logically. In the end I complied all of my findings into a single report that was accessible for someone who had not gone through the process of analysing the data themselves.

Skills Learnt: 

  • Networking
  • Organisation
  • Focus on Goals and Outcomes
  • Leadership
  • Strategic Planning

Attributes Developed:

  • Logical thinking
  • Independence
  • Work Ethic
  • Motivation
  • Perseverance

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

“My internship was thoroughly enjoyable, made possible by my amazing supervisor who provided an engaging, challenging (in a good way), and fun internship experience. The internship provided me an opportunity to consider a career in this field as well as relevant experience for such a job. The process of applying and organising the internship was easy to do, allowing literally anyone to be able to make use of the scheme I applied through. The process of allowing us to seek out and create our own internship enables us to demonstrate our own initiative to seek out our own learning experiences and rewards us for this. I’m not sure if this scheme was available to me last year but now that I’ve completed this one I wish, if this was something I could have done last year, that I had done it last year as well as this year.”

Employer Case Study: University of Exeter, Professional Services; Exams

Administration, Education, Teaching and Research, Employer Feedback, Graduate Business Partnership (GBP), Internship Schemes, , , ,

Name of Organisation: University of Exeter, Professional Services; Exams

Name of Employer: Sarah Miller

Job Title: Response Team Coordinator

Internship Scheme used: Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) , 

Feedback:

“Our intern made an impression straight away on joining his placement team in Exams. He showed great flexibility and adaptability to respond to the fast paced environment. He quickly learnt the systems and quickly became a person who was useful to the team in training other new starters. He has demonstrated many professional qualities and was able to secure a permanent job with the Exams department after a few months with them.

I would highly recommend the GBP scheme, our intern was an excellent worker who demonstrated many positive qualities we would want in employees. Very can do attitude and keen to learn everyday. Took on every task with relish and enthusiasm. All in all a very pleasant employee to manage.”

Student Case Study: Wellbeing Services at University of Exeter

Access to Internships (A2I), Degree subject, Education, Teaching and Research, Health Care, Internship Schemes, Social Guidance and Community Work, Sociology and Criminology, , , ,

Name of Student:  Nina Warren

Degree Subject: Sociology

Job Title:  Wellbeing Intern

Company Name:  Wellbeing Services at University of Exeter

Type of Internship:  Access to Internships (A2I)

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

Offering the student perspective and feedback on the many elements of the service (providing stakeholder feedback), undertaking research for projects and campaigns within Wellbeing, working with other staff members on projects, and researching and speaking with other university Wellbeing departments to compare and share ideas for service improvement

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

My biggest achievement was probably the research report I produced on supporting Chinese international students at UK universities. I did a lot of reading around this and spoke to a few other universities, and the report I produced was thorough and I received feedback from several colleagues that it was interesting and enlightening and had a few requests for them to send on the report to other colleagues. This was my favourite piece of work as I found it fascinating and enjoyable and the end product was clearly valued by my colleagues, which really increased my confidence, too. Overall, my main personal achievements were an increase in initiative and independence, and increased confidence.

Were there any challenges and how did you overcome these?

Mainly I would say working remotely was difficult for me and on days when I was tired I could become more easily distracted at home than if I had been working in person. I overcame this by scheduling catch-up meetings whenever possible, as these meetings kept me motivated, on-track and accountable, and broke up the day.
I also set myself to-do lists that included very small and manageable steps, so that rather than feeling overwhelmed by seemingly large tasks and therefore feeling demotivated, my work felt much more achievable.

Skills Learnt: 

  • Organisation
  • Researching
  • Time and Work Load Management
  • Strategic Planning
  • Communication

Attributes Developed:

  • Creative thinking
  • Independence
  • Initiative
  • Confidence
  • Professionalism

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

My internship experience has been (and still is, as we have agreed to an extension of my internship!) really enlightening and helpful for me. It has increased my understanding of university Wellbeing services, an area I was interested in exploring as a career, and has confirmed to me it that student support is a career path that I am interested in taking. I was made to feel so welcome and relaxed by the staff at Wellbeing and from the get-go I felt valued and encouraged by everybody I work with. This helped me to relax into my work and reduced the pressure. I was given the space to grow and work at my own pace, which was motivating and enjoyable, and has helped me to produce work that both I and my colleagues are proud of. It has been an excellent experience. I am excited to have secured a part time extension with the team.

Student Case Study: Penrice Academy

Access to Internships (A2I), Education, Teaching and Research, Internship Schemes, Modern Languages, , ,

Name of Student:  Rachel Biggs

Degree Subject:  Modern languages

Job Title: Language Assistant

Company Name:  Penrice Academy

Type of Internship: Access to Internships (A2I)

What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?

Assisting in classroom, marking work, being involved in extra curricular and one to one work with students.

What was your biggest achievement on your internship?

I feel like I engaged well with some of the students who had behaviour issues and managed to get them to work with me to complete their work

Skills Learnt: 

  • Organisation
  • Leadership
  • Problem Solving
  • Teamwork and Collaboration
  • Time and workload management

Attributes Developed:

  • Logical thinking
  • Creative thinking
  • Initiative
  • Confidence

Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and it has given me more confidence when pursuing this career in the future as it has not only solidified my passion for teaching but also potentially offered me a way into the job through a trust in which the school is a part of .