University and business celebrate student interns' success
Posted on 30 October 2012
Held at the superb Ron Cooke Hub, the event included the presentation of the ‘Intern of the Year’ award to Camilla Dutton, a final year Law student, who worked with start-up business The Law Wizard.
Over the summer vacation, 66 York student interns worked with local businesses and organisations, delivering projects in areas as diverse as web design, market research and bee keeping. They worked for businesses ranging from start-ups of one or two people through to large organisations such as the Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA) and East Coast Rail.
Andrew Ferguson, Business Community and Enterprise Manager with the University’s Careers service, said: “All the projects were designed to provide significant business value to the host organisations as well as giving the students invaluable experience of the workplace.
“Internships provide a win-win scenario, with students gaining high quality work experience which can help them stand out from the crowd, while businesses gain enthusiastic, motivated students keen to bring their skills to projects in the organisation.”
Four students were shortlisted to compete for the title of ‘Intern of the Year’ at the event, with judges Susie Cawood of the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce and Katie Stewart from City of York Council, selecting Camilla Dutton as the overall winner.
Camilla designed and implemented a market research campaign for The Law Wizard’s new online probate service. This led to publicity on legal industry websites and in magazines, which resulted in enquiries for The Law Wizard's professional legal solutions.
Tom Hiskey, Director, The Law Wizard, said: “Camilla worked hard and adapted well to the challenges of a start-up business environment. The publicity from her market research report opened doors to major organisations, such as Lexis Nexis. Her work had a real impact. For us, as a young company, it was a valuable experience. We enjoyed working with the Internship Bureau and would highly recommend the programme to businesses and students."
All the projects were designed to provide significant business value to the host organisations as well as giving the students invaluable experience of the workplace
Andrew Ferguson
Camilla said: “The aim of my internship was to design and implement a market research campaign to investigate consumer attitudes to online legal services. After creating a survey I distributed it using a variety of different methods, which in total gained 503 responses. From these responses I was able to analyse the information and data to produce an interesting and informative report.
“The report I created has had real impact on The Law Wizard, giving the business high-profile publicity from major legal and technology press. I was very pleased to win ‘Intern of the Year’ as my experience working at The Law Wizard was invaluable. I was able to further many of my skills and gain a wider understanding of commercial awareness, which in turn has helped me to decide the career direction I want.”
Runners up for ‘Intern of the Year’ were Natasha Munro, who introduced new administrative systems for East Coast Rail saving time and money at the highest level of the organisation; Thomas Kelsey, who designed evaluation processes for the recent Grand Science Tour in York which has attracted the commercial interest of other cities; and Kate Paxton, who worked with Barclays Electrical in Harrogate to design new tendering documents to expand their business in renewable energy.
The title of ‘Internship Employer of the Year’ went to FERA for its excellent support of interns over the last few years, and for offering exciting and well structured projects.
Local businesses can find out more about the opportunities offered by the University of York’s Student Internship Bureau at www.yorkinternships.co.uk.
Notes to editors:
- The University of York’s Student Internship Bureau offers business the opportunity to engage its students to tackle short to medium term projects of genuine value to them. In 2011/12 nearly 100 projects were delivered on a part-time basis during term times or on a full time basis over the vacation periods. The Student Internship Bureau offers support in designing appropriate projects, advertising and selecting the best candidates and offers quick, easy and value for money systems to get the student working on the project with the minimum of delay.
- This summer’s scheme attracted double the number of internship projects compared to last summer’s, with nine new businesses and 15 new University departments running internship projects of four to 16 weeks duration. In total 18 businesses and 24 University departments and services participated in the programme this summer, with 32 interns working for local companies and 34 completing projects on campus.
- More information on student internships at www.yorkinternships.co.uk
- More information on The Law Wizard at www.thelawwizard.com
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