Spring In The Middle of Autumn: Unpacking the Internship Hustle

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Spring has sprung in the middle of Autumn! Or so we’re told. Between the auburn leaves and 5 p.m. sunsets, you can almost imagine the flowers bursting through frozen ground, sunlight melting away the cold edges of winter. But for university students, this ‘spring’ looks a lot less like flowers and more like burnout: dark evenings spent hunched over a laptop, applying for the seventh internship this week. “It’s just a numbers game!” we tell ourselves whilst opening yet another rejection email. During the Autumn term, students become like gamblers — feeding their odds into the applications machine and praying something pays off.

The Autumn term for many students is a season of burnout disguised as opportunity. In reality, it is a season of coursework, behavioural tests and interviews. Spring Week Applications open just as coursework deadlines start to loom. Students are encouraged to apply, apply, apply, whilst keeping a strong academic record and balancing the subtle, FOMO-driven pressure to maintain a social life. A third-year student studying Philosophy revealed that they had applied for internships “two years in a row without any luck”. Another (panickedly) admitted they’d “lost count” of how many applications they’d submitted, trapped in an endless cycle of hope and rejection. Most students apply to twenty internships or more, often without so much as a rejection email in return. Instead, their CV’s vanish into the abyss of AI filters, where the fate of their careers is decided by whether they’ve decided to include enough corporate buzzwords. 

So what’s driving this competition? Largely, it’s the growing pressure to build a portfolio that stands out in an increasingly qualified crowd. According to the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2025 report, nearly half of the adults in OECD countries now complete tertiary education, up from 27% in 2000. With so many graduates entering the market, many students feel compelled to secure internships to differentiate themselves against the growing cohort of candidates. Meanwhile, the Institute of Student Employers’ 2024 report found that the average UK organisation receives around 84 applications per internship role. Students are told that to stand out, they need an internship. But to get an internship, you need experience. For many, gaining that experience is time consuming and emotionally taxing, privileging those who can obtain an internship through pre-existing connections. What was once meant to bridge the gap between education and employment has become a barrier that rewards those with safety nets and filters out those without the connections to play the game. A third-year Politics student shared “It seems to be all about who you know. Most of the people I know who’ve landed internships got them through a family friend or relative. If you don’t have that, you’re left applying to a hundred places and praying for a response. It doesn’t feel fair. Entry into the corporate world seems increasingly driven by nepotism, leaving students from lower-income backgrounds behind.” 

While there has been a rise in internships prioritising accessibility, opportunities remain unevenly distributed. The Sutton Trust’s 2025 Research Brief on Unpaid and Underpaid Internships found that students from working-class backgrounds are less likely to undertake an internship than those from a middle-class background, with only 36% of lower-class students competing for internships, compared to 55% of their middle-class peers. A major factor behind this is that many internships are underpaid, making them unattainable for those who cannot afford to work without payment. The same study also revealed that access is closely tied to social capital, with just 1 in 10 internships being found through open advertisement. The fact is, access to internships should not depend on whether you know the right people nor whether you can afford to do one. Internships are meant to offer students the chance to build professional experience and networks that promote, not restrict, social mobility.

So, what happens if you can’t land an internship? Are you destined to fall behind? Not necessarily. While securing an internship can certainly strengthen an application, it is not a prerequisite for success. Many students find experience through other avenues, such as volunteering or completing courses —  there are multiple ways to develop skills and show initiative. The absence of an internship does not entirely define your prospects. You still have a chance, even if Spring didn’t come in the middle of Autumn.