Tell us about your internship experiences

Click here to fill in the questionnaire. Prefer to do it in Dutch? Click here.  

Many students feel pressured to build an impressive CV alongside their studies. For those enrolled in research-oriented universities such as UU, the labour market may sometimes feel distant. Doing an internship is a good way to acquire a bit of work experience ahead of your graduation.

Luckily, most internship experiences are positive, according to a study published by the National Student Association (Dutch acronym: ISO) in 2022 (report available in Dutch only, Ed.). As a general rule, university students tend to evaluate their internships positively: no less than 88 percent of those surveyed declared they'd learned a lot of new things thanks to their internships.

But, whenever things do go wrong, interns find themselves in a vulnerable position. After all, they're working on temporary contracts that don't always give them the same working conditions and protections given by permanent contracts. New to the labour market, interns are often trying to figure out what is expected of them and how they can fit in the company culture. In addition, they're subject to an evaluation by their supervisor.

All this makes interns more susceptible to abuse. Sometimes they have to work more hours than stipulated by contract, for example. According to ISO, one in five students get way too many responsibilities in their internships, so much so that about 25 percent thinks they were used as cheap labour. Fifty percent of university students were not paid at all for their contributions as interns and, when do get paid, the compensation isn't substantive. 

The students who took DUB's stress test, published back in October, also mentioned their internships as an additional source of stress, apart from their studies. They get stressed because they have to work long days and get too few vacation days, for example. In the medical field, it's a known fact that residents often have to deal with inappropriate or abusive behaviour (of a sexual nature or not), mostly committed by medical specialists. It is not known how often students from other faculties go through that, which is why DUB wants to know more about your internship experiences through the present survey.

Click here to fill in the questionnaire. Prefer to do it in Dutch? Click here.