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Student internships are widely seen as a valuable part of education provision and there is a growing body of research into internship programmes from student, employer and educator perspectives. This paper explores the experiences of a group of information technology interns employed in a small organisation involved in health care business intelligence. Taking an ethnographic approach and drawing from a range of data sources including participant observation and qualitative interviewing, this study explores the legitimate peripheral participation of a small group of interns working in a single organisation. The internship programme is shown to be of benefit to the organisation, the occupation and the interns themselves. The participating students clearly benefited from being able to learn from and with experienced practitioners, including their supervisors, colleagues and each other in an authentic workplace setting.

Working with volunteers is a challenging occupation, especially in an environment of increasingly precarious casualisation. Although this trend is evident in other types of work, workers' engagement with the purpose and mission of volunteerism can particularly emphasise blurred boundaries between the work and non-work spheres, potentially confusing employee identities. Emerging from an ongoing ethnographic study, this account draws on Sally's precarious experiences as a leader of volunteers in the conservation sector. She reflects on the joys and challenges of leading volunteers in a messy environment of paradoxically interacting overwork and underwork, while highlighting issues of precarity and balance within and beyond her role as employee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]