The B-KEW bursary is a great opportunity for students to claim back money on out-of-pocket travel expenses or for uniform, whilst undertaking unpaid work experience (for the first three weeks or 120 hours of work) or for a training event. If you do any unpaid work over the summer or have made an application but have not yet claimed, you can still apply / claim now.

Below is the reflective blog from of a School of Arts student who did some work experience with Banyak Film.

Today I am going to tell you the story of how I got offered my dream job.

But first a little introduction. My story starts two and a half years ago when I first came to the University of Kent. I was keen and passionate fresher that couldn’t wait to start learning about film, but I was clueless when it came to how I was going to get it and who was going to give it to me. It is basically the endless dilemma of the chicken and the egg; you need experience to get a job, but you get a job if you have experience, which you can only get if you have a job… You understand the problem, don’t you?
But that still doesn’t explain the dream job thing does it? Well, this is how I did it. A few years ago I watched a film, I enjoyed the film and googled the production company, I promptly found them on FaceBook and liked their page. (The seed was planted.) After a year I contacted the company for an internship, I called them up on the number on their website and got the email of a producer. I emailed them and told them who I was and asked if I could intern there. I was rejected. Obviously this seemed like the end of the world at the time, but as the world has a habit of doing, it kept going. My already budding love for documentary pushed me to go to a Documentary Film Festival, the largest in the UK; looking over the program I came to a realisation, one of the films being shown was from the production company I had contacted so many months ago.

So what did I do? I emailed the producer, because rejection number one should never make you loose hope. I asked them how they were and said that I was also at the festival. They happily set up a meeting; and I realised that employers are human after all. We had a great chat and they invited me to contact them after the summer to arrange work experience. I made sure to do just that.

We set dates and I went off to London and had one of the best experiences of my life; learning the ropes, researching, pitching ideas, editing in mandarin and drinking strong coffee. I worked on two inspiring projects and got the contacts that will help me out after I graduate. In fact, one week after I got back to ‘the real world’, one of the directors contacted me to offer me a place to work on their next film; It is still in very early stages, but this is how I got offered my dream job.

Who got me the job? Well, I need to thank my family and friends for always encouraging me. I need to thank the Careers and Employability Services for giving me the confidence, improving my CV, and giving me professional and caring help and advice, I need to thank BKEW, because travelling in London is expensive, and knowing that my experience was important enough for them to fund made me work all the harder. And finally I am the one that got myself the job.You are always the harshest judge of yourself, if you put in the work and demonstrate your passion, you can do anything.