Diary of a work experience student

The four-day diary from a student on work experience continues, as a 15-year-old girl from London with ambitions in drama or medicine tells of her second day at an arts venue.

WEDNESDAY

In the morning I finished off some faxing which was left over from yesterday afternoon. I decided to take this a bit easy, which has the added bonus that it took me a bit longer. Then after lunch it was data entry on the computer - entering details of all the people who had worked at the venue.

I suppose I feel that they weren't really ready for me. The person who set all this work experience up with is on holiday and they didn't seem to be aware that I was going to be here this week.

I did have ambitions to work in this field but to be honest, it's pushed me away. I don't feel like I've been included. I wouldn't mind being asked to joined the rest of the staff for lunch, but they just leave me to my own devices.

It feels like I could be working in any office. From how it's going I don't think I've learned very much.

TUESDAY

I did different things on my second day. First, at 10am, I was given some leaflets and had to colour code them with stickers according to what venue they were for.

I was doing that by myself and it took about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. After that, I had to replace some posters around the building with new ones for a show which is coming in a few days. I was outside, so it was a change of environment and some fresh air.

After lunch, which I brought with me, I did some faxing in the afternoon, which was a bit repetitive. I finished at 4pm.

Overall, the day was better than the first because I had the job where I was able to walk around outside. Hopefully I will get to do something more practical.

I think some of the other people there are students. I don't get the chance to talk to staff because when I'm working they're doing their own thing. I'm usually in a room by myself and someone checks up on me or if they don't, I go and tell them when I'm finished.

MONDAY

When I arrived at 10am, I was told the person meant to be looking after me was on holiday.

I had a brief tour and then I was sent to someone who gave me three folders and four files of compact discs for me to file in alphabetical order. I was doing that from 10.45am to 1pm. At the beginning it was okay but it got a bit repetitive and boring.

Then I had one-hour for lunch. I had to go outside to get some fresh air because people were smoking in the building and I have bad hay fever. They were even smoking around me when I was working, which was quite hard for me.

Later I did ask a woman about it and she said she didn't like it either but lots of people working there smoked.

From 2pm to 5.30pm I was photocopying. That wasn't much fun. Overall, it wasn't a very good day. I was expecting more practical things, like dealing with telephone enquiries.

Maybe it was just the first day and they wanted to get the boring stuff done. At the moment this is not a field I want to go into, but that's only the first impression.