Fish on Toast-Student Apprentice Finalists

Six candidates have already been fired! With £500 and an internship with New Media Software up for grabs, the final for Fish on Toast’s student Apprentice is going to be a tough challenge for the remaining four candidates.

For the past three weeks, students at the University of Southampton have been taking part in an enterprise challenge run by the Fish on Toast Entrepreneurs’ Society, in which ten candidates were given challenges every week, in a style mimicing to BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’.

In the first week, the ten candidates were split into two teams of five (which they named ‘Team Unergy’ and ‘Team Rainmakers’). The new teammates were then tasked with decorating and selling cupcakes around the University.

There was a fantastic performance from both teams, with a budget of £17.50 for each one to buy and decorate the cupcakes, they made a combined total of £460 in one day.

For week two of the challenge, the teams were each given £20 tasked with marketing Fish on Toast’s speaker event with Matt Fiddes. Together, the teams succeeded in bringing almost 100 people to the event.

With team Unergy winning the first two challenges, the Rainmakers had to prove themselves in the next task.

The final four have a lot to fight for now after making it through their penultimate challenge, creating and marketing a viral video promoting Entrepreneurship.

The Rainmakers came through with their Christmas-themed video, which has more views and was all round better produced. Unergy had copied Fifa’s “Say no to racism” campaign video, which angered the judges.

Now only Caio remains from team unergy and Laura, Marta and Gabriella from Rainmakers.

The four finalists now face their greatest challenge. Each must individually create their very own business idea with a budget of £5,000, in order to impress the judges and secure the prize of £500 and an internship,with Judge Phil McGowan’s New Media Software administered by the University’s Excel Placement programme.

The four finalist provide words on their final task:

Caio Swan

Impossible to feel better! No matter the final result, we’ve already developed many skills with this experience and I’ve made lots of friends, but anyway I’m optimistic about winning.

Gabriela Palma

I was confident I would make it. Yet this is not over it starts every this! This is it!

Laura Varney

To be in the top four feels absolutely incredible as the competition has been truly challenging and demanding, especially with trying to balance university work and other commitments alongside.

However, it’s definitely worthwhile as I have learnt so much from this experience and have built on my own personal skills. I would recommend anyone with a strong passion for creativity and commitment to apply for this competition next year, as it is truly valuable experience.

Marta Baker

It has been a hard competition and I haven’t expected that I was going to reach so far. I have learnt so much from my mates during the different tasks. I also realised that I can do better than what I thought I would do, so I feel I have already won.

Good luck to all the contestants!

The winner will be announced TODAY at 6pm-look out for another article. You can ‘like’ Fish on Toast on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @FishOnToast. You can also read our WHATSOC on Fish on Toast here.