Michael WilkinsInternships have become the like gold dust in recent years. A degree on its own hasn’t been enough to walk into a job for a long, but since the recession hit us four years ago; things have never been tougher for new graduates. These problems have always been more acutely felt by University of York Students. It has the lowest employment rate of any Russell Group University. These distressing statistics coupled with the high entry standards for the most competitive degrees like History and English have led to the University’s administration to receive sever criticism. However, these rebukes have not fallen on deaf ears.
The University of York has recently announced a new graduate internship scheme with the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG). This comes along with a raft of over 50 internships offered for this summer through the University’s Students Internship Bureau. This will come as great news to those current and recent graduates who are trying to break into the extremely competitive arts industry.
Susan McGuire, Head of HR at ATG stated “This exciting connection with York will enable a select number of graduates to experience our diverse range of creative, production and management activities.” The scheme will be named after Greg Dyke, the University’s Chancellor and Chairman of ATG.
Although the University’s efforts are appreciated by the students and have improved from 68.2% of graduates going on to further education or employment in 2011 to 70.6 % this in 2012. Nevertheless this is still shockingly low when compared to York neighbours in the University Guide League Table. Exeter at 13 has a Graduate Prospects rating of 73.0% and Bristol at 11 (only 1 mark higher than York) has an employment rating of 79.2%. It is clear that the University of York still has a long way to go.
In every other respect, research, student satisfaction, and entry standards place York in the top ten, yet, in the all important field of actually getting a job, York falls short. This could be attributed to a range of factors; the University’s focus on academics, the high level of humanities students, who are generally less employable than science graduates, and the low number of vocational degrees like teaching, medicine or law. Whatever the reason for the depressing statistic and however slow the progress, at least students can be relieved the University’s administration is taking the problem seriously and things are set to change for the better.
For more information on the Student Internship Bureau, click.
