{"id":62,"date":"2016-10-07T12:39:18","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T11:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/?p=62"},"modified":"2016-10-06T12:39:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T11:39:36","slug":"qa-with-seven-stories-santander-university-intern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/qa-with-seven-stories-santander-university-intern\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Seven Stories’ Santander University Intern"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children\u2019s Books<\/a> has hosted a\u00a0Santander University SME Internship<\/a>.\u00a0This Santander programme works with Newcastle University\u2019s Careers Service<\/a> and other universities around the UK to fund student and graduate internships with small to medium-sized enterprises.<\/p>\n

I asked our Santander University Intern, Hannah, to tell us more about her time at Seven Stories.<\/p>\n

Hi Hannah! Tell us a bit about yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi, I\u2019m Hannah, I study English Literature with Creative Writing at Newcastle University. I\u2019m going into my third (and final!) year.<\/p>\n

Why did you approach Seven Stories about undertaking a placement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have visited Seven Stories many times and I am particularly passionate about children\u2019s literature. I wanted to see how it works from behind the scenes, to get some experience and to see what it would be like to work there.<\/p>\n

How did you secure the Santander University Internship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I emailed\u00a0Seven Stories\u00a0to see whether\u00a0I could do a few\u00a0weeks’ work experience there. I was ecstatic when they\u00a0said yes! A few weeks later I found out that I could do it as a Santander University Internship and be paid for it!<\/p>\n

So what have you been up to during your internship at Seven Stories?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started off with two weeks at the Visitor Centre. I spent a lot of time in the Studio helping children make kites, finger puppets, masks\u00a0and\u00a0paper boats!\u00a0I got to chat with children and their families about their favourite books and characters, it was so much fun to get excited about Roald Dahl and J.K Rowling with them.<\/p>\n

When things were quieter I surveyed people about their experience of Seven Stories and helped to tidy up the galleries. I got to help out with the Storycatchers’\u00a0activities\u00a0too, including the\u00a0Daydreamer performance<\/a>,\u00a0Little Gallery Explorers<\/a> and\u00a0Sensory Stories<\/a>.\u00a0It was great seeing how Seven Stories aims to give the best experience to all of their\u00a0visitors and that they genuinely care about being an inclusive organisation.<\/p>\n

The highlight of my time at the Visitor Centre was getting to be Mog the Forgetful Cat!\u00a0It was hilarious trying to climb into the suit, and seeing the children so excited to meet the \u2018real\u2019 Mog was so entertaining. It\u2019s an experience I\u2019ll never forget!<\/p>\n

\"Hannah
Hannah as Mog! Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also had the fantastic opportunity to spend two weeks in the Seven Stories archives with the Collection team<\/a>. On my first day there I let it slip that Michael Morpugo is one of my favourite authors. Next thing I knew I had been given a box of his letters to sort through!<\/p>\n

There were letters from Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Philippa Pearce and all sorts of other famous and exciting people. It was fascinating to learn more about Morpurgo as a person and I was inspired by the way he has used his influence as a popular children\u2019s writer to actually make a difference in children\u2019s lives, both through campaigning and through the charity \u2018Farms for City Children\u2019.<\/p>\n

What have you learnt from your Santander University Internship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learnt how a museum or organisation such as Seven Stories actually works. I hadn\u2019t considered before that there were so many different tasks involved in the running of the museum, and thus so many varied career opportunities.<\/p>\n

It also taught me that I really thrive off working with people. I absolutely loved exploring the archives and the things I got to look at blew me away, but I did miss the interaction with the families that I had at the Visitor Centre.<\/p>\n

I also learnt that I\u2019m not as bad at origami as I thought!<\/p>\n

What impact will your Seven Stories placement have on your studies at Newcastle University?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My time at Seven Stories\u00a0has\u00a0helped reawaken the magic of books for me. Sometimes when you\u2019re studying literature you forget what an incredible experience reading is, it sometimes gets lost in all the analysis.<\/p>\n

Spending time listening to children chat about their favourite books has also\u00a0helped me better understand what children want to read. As I study Creative Writing,\u00a0I’m hoping to write a children\u2019s fantasy story for my dissertation. I have been thinking a lot about the lack of protagonists in this genre with a disability and this is something I wish to examine through the story and the essay that accompanies it.<\/p>\n

I have now seen the immense wealth of unique material that the archive offers for research purposes, and can see how examining items from the Collection would bring a new dimension to my writing.<\/p>\n

Do you think we should offer\u00a0a Santander University Internship\u00a0again in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely! The Internship itself was absolutely incredible and\u00a0the financial support from Santander\u00a0made it possible for me to do a longer placement. I have learnt so much and had an amazing time, so I’d definitely recommend it being offered again!<\/p>\n

Is there anything else you\u2019d like to tell us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just thank you so much for this opportunity; I can\u2019t describe just how brilliant it\u2019s been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children\u2019s Books has hosted a\u00a0Santander University SME Internship.\u00a0This Santander programme works with Newcastle University\u2019s Careers Service and other universities around the UK to fund student and graduate internships with small to medium-sized enterprises. I asked our Santander University Intern, Hannah, to tell us more about her time … Continue reading “Q&A with Seven Stories’ Santander University Intern”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[16,17,9,15],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students","tag-collections","tag-seven-stories","tag-student-employability","tag-student-placements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/vitalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}