Blog Contributor: Kaitlin James

Photo: Scott Johnstone, AVP Facilities Management with ESRC summer interns Kaitlin James, Shanen D’Souza, Shelby McFadden

This summer I had the pleasure of working as a summer intern at the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre. I am super excited and proud of all of the work we’ve accomplished thus far and feel as though myself and the other interns created documents and reports that will be of great assistance to the Research Assistants in the fall when continuing to develop Sustainability at Brock.

This experience has really helped solidify some of the ideas I had in terms of next steps in my career and academics. I’ve been interested in environmental sustainability for as long as I can remember, but a real-life experience in the field has really been beneficial for me.

In April of this year, I decided to declare a minor in environmental sustainability to complement my major in Public Health. The two really do go hand in hand, and impact each other in more ways than many people realize! What a better way to start my path in sustainability than by immersing myself in sustainability all summer.

This summer, myself and the other interns helped create several reports, plans and documents, whilst conducting background research in different areas of sustainability. I really got to immerse myself in all things sustainability, examining areas such as communications, sustainability indicators and rating systems, and helped collect information on Brock’s current state of sustainability on campus which was really interesting—In fact, I actually learnt a lot about initiatives that are ongoing that I’ve never even heard of in my four years at Brock!

Overall, it was a great experience and allowed me to meet and work with some amazing people and researchers! I definitely appreciate the opportunity I was given and am glad I took it! The Charter allowed for what I think is some great progress towards a more sustainable Brock! I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for what is yet to come in terms of sustainability during my last semesters here at Brock this year!