The Guardian profiles a women called Anneka Dawson, a 25-year-old student at the University of Sussex who is halfway through a three-year PhD on child development, funded by the Economic and Society Research Council (ESRC).
She has just returned to her studies, following a three-month internship with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), which she believes will stand her career prospects in good stead. “In future, I would really like to work with a children’s charity,” she explains. “So this was really good for me. I gained insider knowledge about how the voluntary sector works and I got help and advice on how to join a voluntary organisation. I met a lot of people, both inside the organisation and at conferences, and having that experience on the CV is really good, because this sector is now really competitive, even for volunteering, so it’s good to have something to make you stand out and show how dedicated and enthusiastic you are.”
The internship was funded by her existing funder, the ESRC, and Dawson has been able to add a three-month extension to the end of her PhD funding, so she hasn’t had to lose any time from her studies. During the internship Dawson moved from her home in Brighton to live with her parents, within easy commuting distance of London. The ESRC paid her travel costs and would have paid accommodation costs, had that been necessary.
“It was a very different environment and I needed to learn a lot quickly, but that was a good challenge,” she says.
All right if you can get the funding.
