Student Placements...AIBU to want to have at least my living and travel expenses paid?

[webbygeek91]

I am aware I am slightly different to your normal target audience as I came here for research purposes as part of a student project, but wondered whether anyone has any experience with undergraduate placement years for students?

AIBU to want to be paid to at least cover my living and travel expenses- I have probably applied to 500+ places now and the general assumption seems to be I should work for free, but the fact is, unless it is in immediate distance to my uni or home address, I would not be able to afford it, and would like to think organizations would appreciate the fact I value my own time and work. That doesn't mean to say I don't appreciate the valuable experience I will get, but still.

Maybe I am BU?

(I'm doing web design!)

I don't think you are unreasonable, but in tougher times, if they can get someone without your needs, then they probably will unfortunatelyl. Not much help. Hopefully, this will bump you back up the list, and someone with recent experience will be along soon....

It's interesting, because one of the things I have also done is wrote to a significant amount of schools offering my knowledge in the following areas:

• IT support and training for staff (Including one to one or group instruction)

• In class support/encouragement to improve student software skills

• Assistance in developing student appropriate skills needed for fully accessing the ICT National Curriculum

• Utilization and appropriate use of online virtual learning environments and/or communities

• Assistance in preparing Sixthform students for studying computing/IT/Web related subjects at University

I have had many different responses from "Yes we would consider you for a 6 week paid placement" (Outstanding OFSTED school) to "Are you serious? You won't find a placement in the next two years!" (School where ofsted has pointed out lack of IT provision).

Anyhow...hopefully someone should be along to give me a push in the right direction!

YANBU

Internships are vital to your CV in this graduate saturated, rapidly shrinking employment market so everybody's after them. Realistically the only people who could afford to do them when I was at uni were those with rich parents willing to bankroll it. I imagine this is the same tenfold now.

Organizations will not pay you because they have never had to and aren't about to start now, they will continue to get quality dogsbodies interns for free. Sorry.

Many people undertaking nursing degrees undertake placements for free.

The idea is to give you hands on work experiance.

if you expect to be paid then you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

If its web design, can you not do it from home. there for no costs but still get the experiance?

The only thing is that by working for a limited period for no return, you could prove your worth, which might make your employer create a role (and payment!) for you. I know someone who did this at a school - worked there in the holidays for experience, and they gave him a permanent position when he graduated.

Good luck!

Thanks. :) Any parents had any experience with this? Doesn't help that there are rumors going round that say we can't continue our degree unless we have one!

(And there's me picking my course at 17 thinking it will help me up the ladder so I potentially have somewhere to go when I graduate...)

Agree with sloggies, you're NBU but with the way everything is at the moment you are going to struggle - there is a general attitude that you shoud be "grateful for the experience" too. Which sucks for you and isn't fair, but in the long run when you've graduated and also have the experience on your cv (as opposed to others who haven't) it will stand you in good stead and you will be admired for your dedication and hard work etc - that's how it should go at any rate. I hope it works out for you, my friend's son is in a similar situiation at the moment :)

if it is part of your Uni course, dont they set you up with the placement?

Thanks. I am aware there are cuts going left right and centre, but I just don't know what to do.

On one side I'm thinking working for a couple of weeks for free will be harmless and look good on my CV, whereas others I talk to say it will set a precedent and give the impression you don't value your own work.

Its so hard. The University have about 50 odd posts up on their website, but I applied for most of these in September externally as soon as they came out!

I suppose I'm lucky because I do have at least work shadowing experience from the police e-services dept, to a small one man band design company in london (spent £70 commuting), to lassothemoon.co.uk and Autism concern, (covers small business, voluntary and public sector!)- some students have nothing at all. I also work as a voluntary representative for those on Web and Multimedia courses, and self arranged a trip to the MOD simulations/IT dept, plus attended various guest lectures from well known names in the area (e.g. Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharpe).

Hope this gets more attention by people in similar situations!

Good luck webbygeek - trust your instincts. My friend's son is on a year's unpaid placement in London, a few weeks into it he got offered a paid placement closer to home. He turned it down because the unpaid placement was with a bigger name firm in the industry. So you have to go with what you think is better for you - that's prob no help at all is it? So I'll go to my fallback position of Good luck, again :)

hI as the parent of a third year uni student who is doing her placement in London, she gets her travel in London paid(we fund the rest as we don't live in the capital) . she also get a small amount of living costs, less tham min wage .
most of her friends are doing un paid placements .
We are not rich parents in fact im a carer to her brother . my daughter worked most of last summer to fund this year ,she also does occassional bar work to give her some cash .
Her placement is a full time and it doesnt look like there is going to be a job at ht eend , as times are hards .Interns are cheap labour if you ask me . Good luck in you placement .

Hmmmm I'm a little bit confused here. Is it a year long or block release placement?

I've not heard of anyone being paid for block release ones as it's assumed that you'd be at Uni during this time anyway, hence no loss of earnings. However, I definitely feel you should be paid if it's a year. The course I'm on contains a placement year, and most students who get one will be earning approx. £14,000.

Further to this point, most students studying teaching do block release placements, unpaid, all throughout their time at Uni. So schools may be unwilling to pay someone when they can get one for free. Especially if your course is not designed for want-to-be teachers.

Finally, I think you need to talk to your placement tutor about any rumours going around and your other concerns, they'll know the best way to help you!

Its definitionaly a year. I have fired off an email to my placements dept, hopefully they will reply soon!

*definitely

Could you look at internships abroad? Mostly they'll pay living expenses?

A friend's flatmates did a (paid peanuts) internship in Paris but it covered her rent in a shared apartment, she velib'd to work and lived on the cheapest food she could find but it was fab for her CV and it was at least paid.

You should be paid for a year placement! Unless you're doing fashion when I think there's still a sheadload of people for every unpaid internship. My DD earnt 15k on her year out, what if you have to commute, buy office clothes etc. Good luck, I hope you find one.

Thanks very much for all your support!

YANBUnreasonable. You might be being Unrealistic though. Life is pretty hard for people trying to build a career right now.

Thanks for all your support :D

YANBU I get particularly angry about this in my field which is sustainability. I honestly don't understand how any company or organisation has the balls to call itself sustainable when they basically try and get away without paying their staff, often the "internships" they offer are for up to a year! (Sorry just needed to rant about that)

Does your Uni have a "jobshop"? The research project I'm working on will often look for a bit of assistance from undergrads & masters students, there may well be projects at your university looking for people with web design skills for their project. Whilst not exactly a placement year it would be a way of bolstering the CV and earning a bit of extra cash.

I think companies should have to pay internees minimum wage.

Thefurryone,

They do, and they are running such a project, however only looking for back end developers (I'm a designer rather than a developer, the logical programming skills I have could fit on a posting stamp!).

How about volunteering for a local charity instead? They might need a web designer and you wouldn't have the living costs to worry about so much.

Eleaner, I might just do that. It may come to it.