Half term is over, and it is that time of year when motivated students are filling out application after application and sending e-mail after e-mail, trying to secure a post-exam work experience placement for the summer.

For those students looking for a position in the media, this trial and error is, unfortunately, unlikely to go further than error. A glimmer of hope is Channel 4’s work experience scheme in London, 4Talent, which is inundated with applicants, desperate for a placement.

There are only 500 places available for the open days alone, with a significant amount less placements actually available for 2010, leaving hundreds of eager students with a generic e-mail from Channel 4, rejecting their efforts and enthusiasm.

Despite this, Channel 4 are amongst the most generous with providing experience, with the large majority of media based companies dismissing the students on the basis of a lack of experience, when experience is all that they are pleading for.

It is bizarre that an entry requirement for an industry is experience, when gaining said experience is like finding a needle in a haystack.

It is clear that something needs to be done to help these students gain the experience that they are expected to have, as they are, after all, the future of an ever-expanding industry.