Title: Work Experience Bursaries
Duration: 3:45
Hi I'm Harj, I'm an Internship Officer within Careers Network here at the University of Birmingham and I'm going to spend the next few minutes telling you a little bit about our Careers Network Work Experience Bursaries.
Our bursaries are open to all undergraduate students, and are designed to help you in getting some financial support to help cover the costs associated with an unpaid or low paid work experience. So, if you have sourced, or are in the process of sourcing, any unpaid or low paid work experience, why not apply to one of our bursary strands?
We have two bursary strands altogether and to apply students have to submit an online application and, if you are successful, you will be invited to a face-to-face interview, and I'm going to spend the next few minutes, within this video, telling you some top tips on how to make a successful online application.
Within your application we want to know how your work experience will contribute to your personal development and career aspirations. Consider specific and transferable skills that you would develop through the experience, and how this experience will help you in reaching your career goal. But remember, don't just list the skills, demonstrate with specific examples how the skills will be developed by your work experience.
Think about how the environment of your chosen work experience will benefit you and what exposure you can gain through your role. Don't be afraid to refer to previous work experience too. If you have any relatable past experiences, how will this opportunity build on what you've learnt and take you to the next level?
You can use the bursaries for opportunities in the UK and overseas, however if your experience is abroad we will want to know why a similar experience cannot be undertaken in the UK, and why a role abroad will benefit you more. Ensure that you can demonstrate this effectively within the application - if you considered UK based roles, highlight this and identify what added value working abroad will have on your career prospects. Remember the experience must not be a holiday or just be about travel. The Bursaries will only fund activities that you can clearly demonstrate are directly related to your personal and career development.
A key part of the application is your budget. We want to see that you've researched your costs and that it is clear how you have calculated these to arrive at your final bursary amount. Ensure you spend time planning your budget and make sure you use the provided budget planner template to log all your costs. Think about being efficient with your costs and spend time exploring different options for the budget section. For example, you could consider two or three options for accommodation and include the average cost of this within your budget.
Try to make your budget planner as simple to understand as possible. Provide evidence of all costs included in your budget, so for example, if you need to organise flights to get to your work experience and this costs £800, include a screenshot from the website or other relevant evidence that clearly shows this is the price. And remember the bursary is not guaranteed, so you will also need to provide us with a contingency plan to show how you will make up the funds if you're not successful.
All these tips along with an example budget planner can be found in the work experience guidance documents accessible on the bursaries web page. Take time in reading this document in full before you submit your application, and also don't forget that you can speak with your Internship Officer if you have any questions or queries around the work experience bursaries.
Good luck with your applications and we look forward to receiving them and reviewing them in due course.