My STEP Signature Project was an internship I had over the summer for a small environmental consulting firm called R2O. The internship was based in Cleveland, OH, and I was an environmental intern for R2O. Since I was based in Cleveland, a lot of the projects I was working on regarded Lake Erie and how to limit pollution in the lake. I did a lot of rainfall analysis, Geographic Information System (GIS) work, and pollution remediation data analysis.
Personally, I did not know what environmental consulting actually was before I started my internship. I am an environmental science major, and there are a lot of different routes you can explore with careers being this major, and consulting is one of them. Consulting is not something you can learn in school, which is why I was so lucky to have an internship at R2O, and it being a small business, everything was very hands on, and I felt myself actually doing meaningful work. I assumed consulting was very much only office work and client relations, but I was wrong- a lot of consulting involved field work, team building skills, personal interactions, and constant movement/changes. I was going into my internship thinking I was probably not going to be doing much as only an intern, but I was wrong. The workplace in general relies heavily on interns’ skillsets and ambition. We are actively learning the newest and most cutting-edge material, so we have a lot to offer companies when the hire us on. I would say that was the biggest perception of mine that was changed. Interns are very important and doing internships is extremely helpful when you are trying to narrow down what you want to do after college!
Like I said before, I worked for a small business, and so everything was very personal and hands on which made this internship a great experience. I developed relationships with everyone in the office, including the CEO of the company. One of the great things about working with a small business, is that you can interact with everyone, including the chairs of the company. R2O is a woman owned, woman powered engineering firm, so I was super inspired by every person that worked so hard to get to where they are. I also became super close with my supervisor, and she gave me career advice, life advice, and help with grad school! Ironically enough, we both had the same name, so it was really fun working with her and never knowing who someone was talking to.
In addition to building relationships within the office, my work signed me up for an internship group in the greater Cleveland area that would hold events for Cleveland interns during the summer. The organization was through the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the events ranged from happy hours to networking events and even professional writing seminars. I am very thankful my work took the extra mile to make sure I was making the most of my internship not only at their company, but within the community I was working for. At the GCP events, I met many professionals in the environmental field that offered me career advice, and I was also able to speak highly about R2O at professional events and give them free publicity.
An activity that I had the opportunity of being apart of during my internship was taking on the role as R2O’s lead GIS developer. A month before I left, R2O’s GIS technician moved to another job, and so they had no one in this role. Throughout my time at Ohio State, I have taken multiple GIS classes, so they were thrilled to hear I had GIS experience. They ended up giving me complete access to their GIS needs, and as only an intern, I was heading all of their GIS analysis and map making. It was a really cool experience to be able to apply what I have been learning in school to real world work. I was extremely lucky to have an internship that trusted me and allowed me to do real work and not meaningless busy work.
This transformation is significant to my life because it showed me how far you can get with hard work and dedication to something you love. I found that if you are doing something that you are passionate about surrounded by others who share that same passion/drive, you can push yourself to do anything. I was only an intern, working among people who have years of experience, but they never once doubted me, so I never doubted myself. I think it is rare to experience something like this so early on in your career, but I am so lucky to have found R2O.
This development is providing me a lot of insight going into the next journey of my life- graduate school. I was kind of on the fence about pursuing a masters or a PhD due to the time commitment and grueling schedule, but R2O showed me that hard work can get you anywhere. I feel more confident about finding solutions on my own rather than following guidelines to help me which is very useful in graduate school in regard to performing your own research/writing a thesis. I was also provided with a lot of knowledge on graduate school admissions by the people I worked with, and I cannot thank them enough. If you are passionate about something, there is nothing in the world that will stop you from following your dreams and I am super thankful my internship helped me discover that about myself.
Here is a picture of Lake Erie after getting back from some field assessments.
