You will hear five short extracts in which students talk about doing an internship, professional work experience in a company.
Task 1
For Task 1, choose from the list what reason each speaker gives for choosing the internship.
Task 2
For Task 2, choose from the list what unexpected experience each speaker had during their internship.
Speaker 1
I’ve just got back from my internship in New Zealand. I’m studying environmental policy and when I was looking for an internship, I was determined not to spend my time cooped up in some dingy office so when I saw the amount of fieldwork this one involved, I went for it. I had to go and talk to dairy farmers and analyse damage caused by flooding using some very complicated – for me – technology! One of the scientists I worked with wants me to take up a post monitoring water quality when I’ve completed my studies. I’d never thought of living in New Zealand permanently – I’ll have to see.
Speaker 2
I‘d always wanted to go to vet school, ever since I was really little, but never really thought beyond that. And funnily enough, it’s only when I went on my internship and worked in a bird sanctuary that I realised that rehabilitating native birds was where I saw my future. In fact, I must email someone I know who’s doing just that in Spain; perhaps she can put me in touch with some organisations. The internship’s lived up to my expectations in every sense. I knew that a leading zoologist was working at the sanctuary and I got to work with her on several occasions – so my dream came true!
Speaker 3
I chose to do an internship at a photographic studio next to the art school where I study in New York. The fact it’s on my doorstep is a bonus but that wasn’t the deciding factor when choosing. They get photographers, designers, technicians from everywhere and it was that global perspective on photography that I was after. It was pretty scary at first; I’d go into a meeting and by the end of it I’d find that I’d been allocated a project to manage. Nothing had prepared me for that. OK, there were people to support me, but until I asked for help, I was just expected to get on with it.
Speaker 4
My internship was one of the best experiences I’ve had so far. It motivated me to study hard and as a result I’ve now got a really well-paid job in a financial institution. It was crucial for me to find something that would give me hands-on experience of what we were covering in lectures and my placement gave me just that. What I didn’t see coming was the fact that in my second month there I was nominated and chosen for the National Honour Society. I was thrilled especially because I know that the panel of judges was made up of some really famous business people.
Speaker 5
A friend had warned me that research science internships can mean working day in, day out, in the same lab somewhere. That’s why the most important criterion when selecting my internship was that it had to be in a large company where I could go to branches in different cities and broaden my experience that way. The knock-on effect of that, that I hadn’t thought about was that I’d got to work with some of the latest microscopes and scanners. So both my life-long ambitions were fulfilled during my internship. I’ve now got to make sure that the ‘real’ job I’ve applied for lives up to that experience