The Felix internship survey is open!
Fill in the internship survey here: https://imperial.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2l7zizlNu7yS5AG
Felix has traditionally conducted yearly surveys to uncover the practises and probe the views of the Imperial student body. Judging by website traffic data and print attrition rate, our recurrent Sex Survey is one of the most popular piece this newspaper produces. Yet numbers show that gen Z is less and less interested in sex, and increasingly worried by work prospects and internships.
The Felix team has therefore come up with a short survey to determine just how important, stressful, lucrative, enjoyable, and time-consuming internships are for Imperial students. The survey opens on Friday 7th November and will close by the end of the month.
While we wait for data, anecdotical evidence allows any one of us to speculate that internships and extracurriculars are always on the minds of students at Imperial and beyond. Some computer science students in this university are encouraged to apply to literal hundreds of placements, in the hope of securing a few interview offers. The times are difficult.
It was recently revealed that between 2019 to 2024, Imperial saw a 44% drop in the number of graduates able to start student loan repayments within two years – one of the most dramatic drops among the Russel Group of universities. This is not an isolated figure, but a reflection of the harsh conditions of the graduate labour market.
Graduate jobs openings are indeed tailing off, with the Institute of Student Employers reporting an 8% hiring reduction over the last academic year.
The exact reasons for this decline are a matter of debate, with AI-linked productivity gains and sluggish economic growth alternatively blamed. Productivity gains are generally here to stay, and the economic prospects of the UK still look bleak, so relief is not yet on the horizon.
Grade inflation is also devaluing degrees across prestigious universities, pushing students to seek work opportunities and extracurricular achievements to stand out in a crowd of high scorers. Last week, an internal report from Harvard University found the institution’s evaluation system to be “failing to perform the key functions of grading.”
So, if you are currently juggling between the Autumn workload crush and mid-application season anxiety peak, take a deep breath and remember that you aren’t alone in this.
And if you want to have a better view of how your peers are doing, help us collect data by completing and sharing the survey! As the application advice goes: don’t delay it.
