Hi all!
As most of you will already know, I will be leaving for Chicago in a couple of weeks' time to begin an internship with the British Consulate. The University of Birmingham have asked me to keep a blog during my time there, which they will publish on their own site. I thought it would be a good idea to set up my own blog which will be more accessible to family and friends who want to keep up with my progress!
I am going to publish the posts I have written for University of Birmingham students too so you can have a read of those if you wish! The first entry I have written is on the application process, which will be of more interest to students at my university but it gives you a good introduction to my journey so far.
Here it goes:
Hi Blog readers,
My name is Claire, I am an International Relations with French student at the University of Birmingham and I am a recent Global Challenge scholar. My Global Challenge award consists of an internship with the British Consulate in Chicago and a full bursary to cover travel, accommodation and living costs.
I wanted to write my first blog entry before I leave to explain my journey to this point. I thought it might be useful to shed some light on the application process and encourage anyone I can to apply for a Global Challenge Award in the future.
In March of this year I received an email from my department, POLSIS, outlining this year’s internship scheme and the various positions on offer through the Careers and Employability Centre. I was on my year abroad in France at the time and one internship caught my eye. It was a 6 week placement working directly alongside the Deputy Consul General at the British Consulate in Chicago. As an International Relations student with a dream of working for the British Diplomatic Service, this was an opportunity I could not pass up regardless of the fact I was still studying in France.
With this internship open to applicants from all departments at the university, it was heavily publicised and I was initially daunted by how over-subscribed such an opportunity would be. However, I came to the conclusion that it was worth a shot and at the very least I would gain experience of such a competitive application process.
The first stage of the application included two written
pieces explaining my motivation, skills and experiences as well as a CV,
academic reference and comprehensive budget. This took a lot of time and energy to get
right, but I believe that putting the effort in at this stage helped me at the
interview stages later on.
Due to the volume of applicants, I did not hear back about my invite to the interview for a good 6 weeks. During this time, I had to put the internship to the back of my mind and continue looking for other summer placements. Safe to say, when I did finally receive the email I was thrilled.
One week later I was back in England attending the workshop organised by the Careers and Employability Centre on interview and presentation skills. I found this workshop to be helpful and informative and it gave me a lot of confidence for my interview the following week.
After a quick return flight from France to sit two exams, I was back in Birmingham for my interview with a panel from the university. We had already been given a presentation brief, which was to be on the subject of our current skills and career aspirations. I practiced this with anyone who would listen, my family and friends knew my presentation inside out and this preparation definitely helped me with my nerves on the day. Following the presentation, I was asked a variety of skill and motivation based questions. The whole interview flew by and I actually quite enjoyed the experience despite my nerves.
Over the next few days I anxiously awaited news of whether I had reached the final stage of the interview process. When I finally received good news a few days later, I was over the moon. I now faced a phone interview with the Deputy Consul General himself before a decision would be made on the successful applicant.
I found the prospect of a phone interview quite daunting and I was definitely more nervous for the final interview. When the time came for the call, I still dressed in my interview outfit as I felt it helped me get into character! The phone call itself went really quickly but I was confident I had been able to get across my knowledge and passion for the role.
Now came one more anxious wait before I heard whether my application had been successful. Just a couple of days after my phone interview, I received the unbelievable news that I had been offered the internship and would be spending my summer at the British Consulate in Chicago.
With just over two weeks to go until I leave for the USA, the support of the University of Birmingham has been incredible and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to them for sourcing my ideal internship (and offering it to me!) I will aim to post once more before I leave, so check back soon for my next blog entry!
Claire
