Applying for your work experience or funding

• If you have been awarded a work experience bursary previously, you can apply again, however, you must strongly demonstrate how this experience is different, and builds upon the previous opportunity for which you received an award.
• Students can only apply for one bursary scheme, not both.
• The bursaries are designed to act as a contribution towards the cost of your work experience. Depending on the performance of your overall application, you may receive all, part of, or none of the funds you have requested. Therefore, as part of your application, you must demonstrate and identify alternative funding options as a contingency should you not be awarded all of your requested funds; you should not fully rely on the bursary to fund your experience.

• The bursaries can primarily cover costs associated with travel (including vaccinations and visas), accommodation and living. For physical opportunities where students must pay to undertake the experience, the bursaries cannot be used to cover registration/administrative fees. However, students may be able to apply for a bursary if part of the fee is used toward tangible aspects of the experience (such as covering accommodation and travel expense). Applicants are required to obtain a breakdown of these costs from their employer and identify this within their application.

Students who have received a bursary reported they had developed valuable career-specific skills they could not have developed elsewhere as a result of their work experience. Even those who were unsuccessful in receiving a bursary, reported feeling better equipped to deal with other work experience applications, interviews and presentations.

Enhanced transcripts

The University of Birmingham introduced an enhanced transcript system. In addition to academic achievement, the enhanced transcript will provide information about verifiable extracurricular activities such work experience bursaries.

Verification of this activity will be made available to the University’s central records system and it will automatically appear on the transcript. As part of the bursary process, you will be asked to let us know if you do not want the activity to appear on your transcript.