Events and Partnerships Intern Review

Challenging and rewarding. Tasks were diverse and there was a real feeling of working together and supporting one another, where the rest of the permanent staff genuinely cared about how much I enjoyed it and helping me develop professionally.

I was frequently made to feel appreciated. My manager thanked me at least daily for all my hard work, and on completing tasks for other members of the team I was always heartily thanked, and received much praise and acknowledgement for my achievements.

There was extensive guidance from my superiors and managers, but they also listened to my needs for the internship.

It was very rare that I either felt too bored or too overloaded. I always had a variety of tasks to complete, with contrasting levels of importance, so I always had lower-priority, longer tasks on hand to fill in the gaps between meatier, higher-prioroty projects.

I was given a considerable amount of responsibility to manage my tasks and was given sole responsibility for things such as securing sponsorship for a specific task, or putting together the material for an event programme. Equally, however, I felt supported and had a "catch-up" with the permanent staff on a regular basis to ensure I was happy with what I was doing and things were moving in the right direction.

I have now completed my degree, but the skills I have learnt through the internships will be invaluable in my working life - whether I decide to stay in the charity sector or not. The CV and interview training was first rate, and really tailored to individual intern's needs. The internships as a whole was really focussed on ensuring you got as much as possible out of the scheme, and went to considerable lengths to give each individual intern what they desired (within reason!) in terms of experience, training and skills development.

Vibrant and friendly. But hard-working. A really excellent balance between feeling and working as a team, but knuckling down and getting the job done.

Really well planned and organised. Some things were firsts for the internship scheme, so it was a case of trying things out and seeing how it went, but the planning and running of the whole scheme was virtually seamless.

I received everything I could have hoped for, to include, IT training that I requested, interview and CV training, job application advice and support from my immediate team, specific interview feedback, and much more. Additionally, I was given a lot of leeway but also support when taking on responsibility for projects within the team.

I'd love to work for Cancer Research UK more than anything else! However, credit crunch times means the number of jobs (especially entry-level positions) becoming available within the organisation in summer 2009 are very few and far between, making it difficult.

Not much in place officially, and because the interns are spread over 5 locations it was difficult to coordinate social gatherings. Two buildings were in the Holborn area, and two were near Regents Park, so people tended to socialise amongst themselves within these two sections. There was some socialising amongst colleagues, but mostly in aid of leaving dos and the like. If you were willing to organise the party yourself, however, intern nights out were a lot of fun.

It's London. It's central. It's never going to be cheap. But there is a lot of choice, and it's a case of finding out where to go for some meal and drinks deals.

Covent Garden, Soho, Tottenham Court Road area are all really close, with an excellent selection of bars and clubs. Equally, Holborn itself has some excellent bars and restaurants.

Opportunities to volunteer at a variety of events, from music festivals to celebrity gala dinners, and charity sports events.