Professional internship in my second year - DMU Frontrunners

De Montfort University

Official Rep

Hi everyone! :biggrin:

My main notion for us students is to always take advantage of the outstanding opportunities within our reach. That is why I am coming to you today to talk about the DMU Frontrunners scheme, which is an occasion to enhance your employability. If you are looking for invaluable work experience, want to develop transferable skills, and need a paid job, you do not want to miss out on DMU Frontrunners.

So, what are DMU Frontrunners?

It is a paid internship scheme offering around 100 roles within different DMU departments each year, meaning that you would work with DMU employees at the campus.

The internships are arranged flexibly around your timetable, for 10 hours per week. In the following academic year, frontrunners will get paid £10.90 per hour. They normally start at the beginning of October and finish at the end of March, so they are six months long.

Most of the available roles are open to all faculty students, and some are even for all students, depending on the nature of the internship. The best thing is that no one is excluded. The amount and variety of offers allow everyone to find something related to the field of study, in the circle of their interests or career aspirations.

Can anyone apply?

Almost. You must remain a DMU student for the duration of the internship, and you must not have completed a frontrunner role or sandwich placement scheme before. Otherwise, you are free to go. In order for your application to be accepted, you need to attend one of the Mandatory Frontrunners Application workshops available both online and on-site.

In addition, you are free to apply for as many roles as you desire. However, remember that you will need a unique cover letter for each of them to have a real chance because every internship has different requirements and various responsibilities.

What does it really look like?

This year I have completed a Frontrunner Internship as a Research Assistant in the Psychology of Language. I am writing about it because it was one of the best things I have experienced at DMU. To put it simply, I extremely boosted my CV, built a professional network, gained a spectrum of research and transferable skills, and learnt so much from my supervisor.

During those six months, I was involved in the comprehensive process of conducting academic research on learning foreign languages, including recruitment of participants, task piloting, arranging appointments in psychological labs for testing, training in specialised psychological software and advanced Excel data organisation, collation, and analysis. Additionally, I created a few summaries of my supervisor’s journal papers for an online database, which might sound boring, but already have a few publications with my name on them owing to that! Last but not least, I engaged in monthly discussions and networking with members of the Language Lab and great external speakers.

It was a brilliant journey that allowed me to grow personally, professionally, and academically.

Now as you can understand why it is so priceless and you cannot miss that, all you have to do, is mark March in red on your calendar and get ready to shine with your application(s) for your chosen internship(s)!

I hope you found it helpful :wink:

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask or join The Ambassador Platform where you can chat with me and other student ambassadors.

For more Frontrunners information, you can also contact them directly on [email protected].

Take care,

Julia :h: