What's wrong with work experience for young people in the West Midlands?

In this blogpost a young person from the West Midlands shares their story.

Hi my name is S.A., and today I would like to share my personal story of my work experience last year.

My work experience began at the start of year 11, right before the summer holidays. Our school had advised students to independently email or contact workplaces and employers to find their own work experience. Personally, I feel as though students should’ve had more help with this because they are new to the employment process and how to professionally communicate with employers.

I had contacted a pharmacy which was local to me, I chose my work experience to be in a pharmacy because I had a vison to go into medicine and wanted to know what it was like. My work experience had lasted for 1 week and during this week I was told to organise medicine and clean shelves. In my opinion, I think students should be more involved in tasks that give them a better understanding of the field they’re interested in. Going into the role, I was hoping to learn about the responsibilities of a pharmacist and gain and experience with patients.

I wanted to see first hand how medicine is dispensed, how prescriptions are managed, and how pharmacists interact with both customers and other healthcare professionals rather than cleaning. I understand that this is a part of the role I think that students should be given the opportunity to engage more directly to the role of a pharmacist or the profession they chose. One good thing I learned was how important tasks like organizing medicine and cleaning are to keep the pharmacy running. But I didn’t get to work with patients or watch a pharmacist, so the experience felt a bit limited.

Overall I think work experience should be more supported by schools, especially when it comes to helping students contact employers and understand how to communicate professionally. Many students are new to this process, so a little extra guidance would be helpful. Also, work experience should be more hands-on and related to the field students are interested in. In my case, I wanted to learn about the work of a pharmacist, but most of my time was spent organizing medicine and cleaning. It would have been better if I could have seen how pharmacists work with patients or learn about their daily tasks.

If work experience allowed students to do more real tasks in their chosen field, it would help them understand the job better. For me, being able to see more of what pharmacists do would have made the experience more useful and helped me decide if this is the career I want to pursue.

Thank you for taking your time to read this!