Students and employers attended an event last week to celebrate their participation in the University of Aberdeen’s ABDN Internships programme.
Since September, 42 students have benefited from internships with 36 employer partners. These internships have resulted in nearly 3,000 hours of work experience gained for University of Aberdeen students and the impact on the host organisations has been massive. A further group of 74 students will be undertaking internships over the summer.
The innovative part-time, term-time paid internships, funded by the University, see students work for a total of 70 hours over the course of seven weeks on a project set by a local employer. The internships are focussed in areas where there tend to be a lack of paid internships – namely the nature, cultural and creative, charity, sport, health and wellbeing and SME sectors.
Students and host organisations gave presentations at the celebration event sharing their experiences of the programme. It was clear from those presentations the huge impact the internships are having on both the students and the organisations.
Emma Panton from Clan Cancer Support said: “Something at Clan would’ve suffered had we not had this internship.”
Lottie Phelan, intern at ETZ Ltd, said: “Balancing this internship with my studies has been incredibly rewarding. It’s one thing to learn about just transitions in a lecture – it’s something else entirely to see what it actually means in practice for the communities who are directly impacted by energy developments.”
If any organisations would be interested in finding out more about the ABDN Internship programme please click here or contact employers@abdn.ac.uk.
Thanks to the hosts organisations involved:
- Ace Voices
- Aberdeen and Inverurie Chiropractic Clinics
- Aberdeen City Council (Countryside Ranger Service)
- Aberdeen City Council (Family Learning Community Development)
- Aberdeenshire Council (Natural Environment Team)
- Aberdeenshire Council (Sustainability and Climate Change Team)
- Aberdeenshire North Food Bank
- ActionCOACH
- Bennachie Leisure Centre
- Buglife (Species on the Edge)
- Cathedral Church of St Machar
- CityMoves Dance
- Clan Cancer Support
- Create Aberdeen
- Cybersafe
- DXD Media
- ETZ Ltd
- Fides Oak
- Filpumps
- Fisheries Management Scotland
- Genomes.io
- Green Shores at St Andrews University
- HR Hub Plus
- NLB Coaching
- Our Union Street
- Paws on Plastic
- Raemoir House
- RSPB
- Ruthrieston Community Centre
- Scottish Enterprise
- SportAberdeen
- Tall Ships
- TeachPitch.com
- The Period Place
- UHI Shetland
- University of Aberdeen (Anthropology department)
- University of Aberdeen (Careers and Employability Service)
- University of Aberdeen (Chaplaincy)
- Walter Scott Research Centre
- Your Love Rara