Chels

If you’re following us on Instagram, you might have seen that we recently held applications for our first ever summer internship programme. This week we selected our group of interns – and we’re so excited to get to work next week. We had so many applications from writers who are really passionate about their ideas and interests, and I can’t wait to get to read their works. I want to take this week’s post to talk about my experience during my summer internship at MindlessMag, one that has significantly impacted my employability (in a good way!), and inspired our own programme.

In the UK, there are schemes in place at pretty much all universities to assist students from areas with a low percentage of young adults attending higher education. They range from modified entry requirements and school outreach programmes to increased financial support and work experience opportunities, and I was offered the MindlessMag summer internship through my university’s work experience scheme. It took place in July and August, right after I’d handed in my final pieces of work, and kept me busy through the first few weeks after the comforting chaos of final year.

Not only did I have a great time (and if you have the opportunity to work with MindlessMag, I recommend it), the internship did wonders for my impostor syndrome. There was a bit of a weight lifted off my shoulders, since it was unpaid, I felt a lot less pressure to aim for absolute perfection. After all, that was the point – to make mistakes. Their editing team shared feedback on each piece which built my confidence and guided me in the right direction in the places I’d wandered off track. I also had the opportunity to get hands-on experience with SEO (the bane of my writing career, if I’m being honest, but annoyingly, worth it.)

My undergraduate degree fell right in the thick of lockdown, so during our work placement term, most opportunities usually available for students couldn’t take place. There were the odd office placements based in London, but the rules meant we couldn’t travel into the city, so they were effectively reserved for London-based students, and for most of us, the work experience was replaced with online learning programmes. It’s understandable, there wasn’t really much they could do, but graduating in 2022 meant an oversaturated graduate market, and coupled with the lack of work experience, a lot of us were at a disadvantage. I may have studied 40 hours of digital marketing on Linkedin, but that was nothing compared to graduates with real world experience.

That’s where MindlessMag rescued me. I went from 0 experience, to suddenly having experience in writing, editing, visual design, and SEO. (and while plenty of people look down on Canva as ‘not really graphic design’, the fact that I have workplace experience of it helped me to get interviews, so who really cares that it’s not the latest and most expensive software to appease the elitists?).

I can say with 100% certainty that my summer internship helped me to get interviews. It ticked all the right boxes for transferable skills, and I was even asked about some of my articles as part of the interview process. While I did end up going back to uni (the 2022 job market was pretty dire), I still credit the internship with being one of the most important things on my CV.

Part of MindlessMag’s ethos is mindfulness and wellness, and ensuring you’re doing the kind of jobs that make you feel a sense of satisfaction, like you’re fulfilling your purpose. If I’m being honest, it took me a long time to find that mindset – I can’t pretend that money isn’t important. Lately, though, I’ve started to find my purpose. I’m not particularly suited to digital marketing. It’s not the kind of mindset I naturally have. I love what we do here at Nonsense&Lit, but I’d love for our work to make a difference in people’s lives. And that’s what led us to designing our summer internship programme.

It’s loosely based on the structure my internship followed, but it’s tailored to our specific niche. I really hope that by giving our writers an opportunity to get real world experience in writing and editing (and the ever important SEO), we can positively impact their lives and their careers. I’m so fortunate to have been helped by so many generous people during my time at university and in my past jobs, and it really showed me just how valuable that help can be. I really hope we can have the same positive impact.

Stay tuned for our intern’s works – we’ll be releasing them weekly, starting next month.