I may be writing this week’s Mailbox Monday at 10.45pm on Monday but it still counts and I even tore myself away from the calling of the Sims to bring it to you in time! It was my 26th birthday yesterday so all of my blogging plans for the weekend just gone went entirely out of the window so I really wanted to try to keep to my new schedule at least a little bit and, as it is Autism Awareness Month, I wanted to speak to you about something very personal and important to me – being autistic.
Last week I went for an interview with an award-winning research agency for a position as a junior research intern for 3 months, with the high likelihood of a full-time job upon completion. Now, any other graduating students know how invaluable (and rare) well-paid internships are, let alone well-paid internships which aim to hire their interns at the end of the process. Often interns end up getting used as free labour, are expected to work long hours in order to gain much sought after skills including tea-making and photocopying, and after putting their blood, sweat and tears into their internship in the hopes of a job usually end up getting turned out the door at the end so that the organisation/business/corporation can move onto the next desperate graduate.
As a result, I had never really had any interest in doing an internship before, given how exploitative they often are. So what drew me to this one?
Red Rocket Panda 