If you’re looking for long or short term opportunities to develop your skills and add to your CV, then we would like to hear from you! Depending on availability we are able to offer:
- Full time, short term placements working with the Visitor Services team on an assigned project
- One day a week (to suit your lecture timetable) helping out as an office assistant
- Volunteering Opportunities as a member of our Front of House team, tour guide or ‘Explainer’
- Volunteering hours toward a project goal such as Duke of Edinburgh or Arts Award
- Internship placements for externally funded schemes
Sabrina was with us for four weeks over summer 2014 on a European Placement from Geneva. She helped to design some consultation based around ideas for our new exhibition, ran a series of art workshops and family drop-in events, assisted with guided tours and helped to create new text. Sabrina also helped out in the Visitor Centre and attended regional tourism meetings and planning meetings for our 150th anniversary celebrations.
Kitila was a Civil Engineering student on an 8 week summer internship with the University of the West of England. He developed a physics resource pack for KS3 pupils which investigates bridge engineering, working with the Architecture Centre and Bristol University to achieve this.
Arnnav volunteered to achieve his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. He undertook till training and was part of our Front of House team.
Katie, Bethany, Fred and Lucie were all students who wanted some workplace experience for their CVs. They worked with the Visitor Services Team booking in around their other commitments. Between them, they developed visitor surveys, created consultations about our new exhibition and helped with events and guided tours – as well as helping with day-to-day tasks in the office.
Aoi, Eduardo, Jose and Sagan all wanted to improve their English. They paired up with Front of House volunteers to help staff our Visitor Centre and answer customer enquiries, helped with guided tours and ventured out and about on the bridge as part of our team of ‘Explainers’.
Rory’s Work Experience Placement (Secondary level)
In July 2013 Rory undertook a work experience placement with the Clifton Suspension Bridge Visitor Centre. During this week, he helped with banking and cashing up; opening and closing the Visitor Centre; dealing with shop customers; delivering a guided tour; developing a Children’s Trail; research; collection archiving and till training, as well as attending meetings and participating in a tour of the bridge abutments.
“On Monday I helped Laura (The boss) with the banking and restocking of the centre and after lunch I learned how to use the old till and helped run the Visitor Centre.
On Tuesday I sat in on a meeting about the new visitor centre and during the afternoon learnt about the new till with Laura, and then helped with the two till training sessions after that (we were teaching the other volunteers how to use the till).
On Wednesday I helped around the visitor centre in the morning (making sure nobody was finding using the new till difficult) and during the afternoon I went down under the abutments and we saw if it could be suitable thing to include in tours.
On Thursday I came in an hour earlier to sit in on another meeting about the new visitor centre, then I helped with a tour showing some years 3&4 around the bridge. During the afternoon I did some archiving which involved taking old postcards and carefully storing them away.
On Friday I helped in the visitor centre in the morning, making sure everybody knew how to use the new till, and during the afternoon I helped restock and cash up for the week.
Overall I would say that this work experience is quite fun, as I like meeting new people, and a visitor centre is perfect to do this. I also liked working on the till as working on a till is probably going to happen at one point or another in my career so this was good practice. Overall, I enjoyed my time at the Visitor Centre.”
Joseff’s Work Experience (Choosing A-Level options)
Joseff was interested in becoming a Museum Curator and already had a broad range of experience as a young volunteer in the museum in his home town. Hw wanted to broaden his skills, gain more confidence and think about his future study direction at University. Monday began with an induction and a chance to explore the exhibition. Joseff sat in on a meeting with a team from Bournemouth University who are working on a project with the Visitor Centre, and then spent the afternoon on the Front Desk where he learned about the role of our Front of House Team and how to operate our till system. On Tuesday, Joseff worked with the Education Volunteers to assist with the delivery of a programme of events for South Bristol Youth, which included a bridge tour, vaults tour and newspaper bridge building challenge. This was followed by another set of activities for a Summer scheme, during which Joseff was able to become more directly involved with the delivery. Wednesday saw a meeting with volunteers from the bridge who are conducting research for a new exhibition about John Hawkshaw and William H. Barlow – followed by chance to become involved int he research process and follow some of the leads generated in the meeting. On Thursday Joseff helped with delivery of a 2 hour public Vaults Tour, which goes into the space beneath the Leigh Woods Tower and assisted with general office admin, including designing and making badges for volunteers to indicate the languages they speak. The week ended with more project research and some assistance in stocktaking ready for the weekend.
Alessandro’s Work Experience (Language Placement)
“This experience of 5 weeks here at the Bridge (plus 1 week of English course) went really fast, probably because I enjoyed staying here in the city and working at this place, I didn’t mind being 1500 km away from home because it was really good here.
During this experience, I didn’t really learn a lot of things but I have improved a lot of things.
My English is better, as when I began to start English I have always been good with vocabulary and grammar, the problem was to talk. The most important thing for me is how much I am fluent in a language, so in this case I feel I have improved a lot because now I can reply, I don’t have to think about the answer for some time I just say it and that’s it, I absolutely love it.
As a person and for my future and life in general, I learned to care for myself alone, I’m more independent and I proved to myself I can do it even if I have no help from my family or friends. I understand more the value of money and life.
As a work experience now I can do many tasks better in English. I learned to manage the desk and how to interact with customers and, I now have more team-work skills because of the many volunteers.
Overall I found this experience really interesting and exciting, I recommend an experience abroad like this to everyone who wants to improve as a human being and add something to the curriculum, and obviously to improve a language and to gain experience in work.”