Carlie LaughlinIntern Insights is a mini-series that spotlights the interns participating in the Sustainability Internship Program (SIP) and their day-to-day activities and accomplishments. The Office of Sustainability partners with the Student Sustainability Council and sustainability-related units from across the University to provide exciting and meaningful undergraduate internship opportunities for UK students. Interns work with a mentor to support a specific sustainability-related unit on campus, develop an independent project, and participate in a professional development series with a full cohort of interns. In this article, we are excited to share the perspective of Shayna Bassi, one of our UK Recycling interns.
Being a recycling intern under UK Recycling has thrown me into a whirlwind of new experiences!
As a Communication Science and Disorders major, I had little professional experience with sustainability before I began my internship. I had a passion for it, that was for certain, but all of my efforts to date had been personal.
I thrifted, recycled, and created a community service project on campus with a sustainability element to it. However, all of these things were within my comfort zone! My internship has exposed me to new experiences, taught me more about sustainability, and has pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way!
I am very much a bullet list person. I like things to be quick, to the point, and efficient when it comes to getting tasks done. All interns have to create an independent project; mine is titled BBN Tackles Plastic. I have drop-off bins in all residence halls so students can dispose of their unwanted plastic bags. From there, my club, Sustainability Future Leaders, would gather the bags and transform them into sleeping mats for the unhoused. The sleeping mats are provided to the unhoused through a partnership with The Hope Center.
In my head, I figured that I would just make the bins, place them in all the halls, make a social media post, and then it would all be a success! However, I learned that a project like this requires a lot more background work than I anticipated.
We first had to meet with Residential Life to get the project approved–and we were initially approved for only two pilot locations, with the possibility of expanding later. We had to create tabling schedules, flyers, e-flyers, and digital marketing for the screens on campus. We also needed to figure out data collection methods to show measurements of success, and I had to monitor and collect this data.
All of this is to say that this project taught me a lot about the in-depth steps it takes to make something successful, and that you can’t do it all on your own; you need to reach out and create a network to make something successful and long-lasting.
Every week, one of the interns gives a presentation on something related to waste management. This is given in front of the other 3 student interns and our mentor. This has provided me with a great learning experience as I have been able to research deeper into sustainability topics I previously had a mild interest in. As mentioned, my major and future career goals are not centered around sustainability, but these presentations gave me the time to really learn about topics I had been curious about but too busy with schoolwork to look into.
Furthermore, I have also learned from my fellow interns’ presentations and can always count on receiving a deeper view into these topics every week! Some of these topics include the brand Lush, sustainability in zoos, and how recycling has evolved.
After each presentation, we are given feedback on what went well and what we can improve on, and this low-stakes presentation style is very helpful for people who are new to or nervous about public speaking.
This internship has pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me realize the full scope of skills that I possess. I have driven a van around campus collecting clothes for our Thrifty Cat pop-up. I have had multiple phone conversations with a British man on how to fix our scale to get accurate weights for waste diversion numbers. Then I pulled out a screwdriver, took the scale apart, and fixed it!
I have been in the hot back rooms of Blazer Dining, sorting massive amounts of clothes into specified piles. I learned what a squeegee is and how to apply stickers to our recycling bins. I even learned to ride our trike! Oh, and I can’t forget all the new Excel skills I learned, too.
Being a Recycling Intern has been a great part of my senior year, and I would recommend it to everybody, no matter their major. There is so much to learn in college outside of your field of study, and so many cool people to meet, and the Sustainability Internship Program is a great way to get involved.
