Internship Location: Madison WI
Organization Type: Nonprofit
Policy Areas: Environment
During my time at the Office of Sustainability, I got to learn a lot more about not only environmental issues but also campus organization and student engagement. The OS is primarily concerned with how sustainability and the environment play a role in campus operations, so the topics we covered were directly correlated to things we see on campus (water usage, energy, waste, etc.). I’ve applied a lot of the skills I’ve learned about in classes like Evidence-Based Policymaking and the Administrative Internship course to guide my work, using simple and effective communication and writing to achieve the goal of educating about sustainability. I was surprised by the focus of our work; I came into the internship expecting to be focused more on the environment, but it ended up being a lot more concerned with campus organization and students, which I find will be helpful in my future career. The most valuable thing I came out with was being able to work with others in a professional setting to get stuff done. I would definitely recommend this to students who are interested in engaging with sustainability at the university and want to continue spreading the word about sustainability. This internship helped me think about my future career because it showed me what kind of stuff I’m interested in and what kind of stuff I’m not as interested in.