"All grown up now"
Malene Bro wanted to find an internship and had a plan. But then came the study progress reform and suddenly she didn’t know whether she would be caught up in the new rules.
The last ‘extenders’ at AU
Omnibus has met three Master’s degree students who’ve just avoided being hit by the study progress reform by a split second.
Their internships and temporary positions were possible because they are the very last students to have the chance to extend their time to degree, in contrast to the students who will come after them.
They are happy about this. The practical experience and the accompanying responsibility makes them feel more adult, capable, and professional – qualities that will make it easier for them to brand themselves on the labour market.
"I really did have a lot of conversations with student counsellors to hear whether it would affect me. But they couldn’t give me a definite answer. That was in spring 2014 when the study progress reform was completely new," says the 25-year-old Master’s degree student in corporate communication at the Department of Business Communication.
Fortunately, things were clarified before she began her internship in the autumn of 2014 during the third semester of her Master’s degree programme.
She worked full-time for the Den Sociale Retshjælp (the Danish social legal aid organisation, ed.) from September last year until February of this year. But because her internship only earns 20 ECTS credits, Malene has fallen behind with her degree programme.
So she is using this spring to get the final ECTS credits that she needs, before the Master’s thesis awaits her after the summer holidays.
This has previously been normal practice – but no longer. After the summer holidays students will have to register for 30 ECTS credits for each semester.
Juggling credits
Malene ended up 15 ECTS credits in arrears because she also chose to postpone a subject worth 5 ECTS credits during the second semester of her Master’s degree programme in the spring of 2014.
She did so because this gave her the option of earning the credits she needed by taking some more appealing elective subjects at Copenhagen Business School (CBS).
This was because CBS awards 7.5 credits for each of her two elective subjects, so that the equation adds up, explains Malene, who hardly dared believe it when the Student Counselling Office finally assured her that her plan would just about pay off.
Motivating
"I feel extremely lucky and privileged when I talk to the students who started after me. I feel like putting an arm around their shoulders and saying: ‘It’s such a pity that you won’t have the same opportunity as me’," says Malene.
She finds it difficult to imagine how anyone can find the time and energy to follow a course while also in a full-time internship. For her at least it would have led to an enormous pressure of work, she says.
"I think I would have ended up taking a profile course at the university instead of an internship. That would have been the easy solution. But I wouldn't be passionate about that and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take these courses at CBS. I would graduate with a profile that was the same as everyone else," she says.
Ten feet taller
During her internship at the social legal aid organisation, Malene has discovered that what motivates her most is HR rather than communication. The increased responsibility she has been given in connection with recruitment and job interviews has given her important experience and faith in her own abilities.
"I feel I’ve almost become ten feet taller,” she says, sitting up straight on her chair: "All grown up now, if you understand what I mean."
Translated by Peter Lambourne