At Oxford University, there is a scholarship called the Moritz-Heyman Scholarship, which is a needs-based bursary for students with a household income of under £16,000 per year. The Moritz-Heyman office also offers a lot of support with applying to internships and jobs. They also offer funding for internships, as often, internships are unpaid, or the one you really want to do is somewhere far away, so you need to fund transport, food, etc… The idea of this funding is that no one is prevented from doing an internship they really want to do because the cost may be prohibitive.
This summer, I contacted the Oxford Careers Office and asked if they would be able to fund a two week trip I was hoping to take to Malta, as a kind of internship / work experience, and they agreed! My college also kindly gave me some funding for this - most colleges offer this: you usually have to fill in a form explaining what you're doing and how it relates to your degree and / or career plans, and then speak to your tutor about it.
Whilst in Malta, I was working as an International Service Team member on a joint project between the Scout Association of Malta and Malta Girl Guides, as well as in part volunteering for the UK Scouts. This meant that I didn't really have a set role, which meant that I got stuck in with lots of different things, from running an abseiling course to quickly serving emergency food to people during a colossal thunderstorm.
I also had the opportunity to explore Malta a little in my time off. I did some really cool things, from swimming in the sea at night, to jumping off a boat into the Blue Lagoon, to seeing canons fired in Valetta. I also got to reunite with a friend I'd made in Malta several years ago!
The Careers Office also run a yearly internship photo competition, and, although I didn't win (this year!), I had loads of beautiful photos to enter - not because of my (non-existent) photography skills, but because Malta has some amazing sunsets and crystal clear seas!
Since working in Malta, I've found that potential employers really appreciate you having international experience, which is why the Moritz-Heyman internship bursary was so important to me! Having international experience is good because you learn about how different people from around the world work together and interact with each other. Even if you can't go abroad to get work experience - obviously, not everybody can, and it can be really scary and difficult to be so far removed from home - even in Oxford I've worked with lots of people of different nationalities. For example, I write for a magazine for which my editor is Russian, and I'm working on a conference for which the President is from Bahrain.