Our Summer Interns – Read about Jehan Bhandal’s Circular Economy Internship
Over the past few weeks, Jehan has worked with the Environment and Transition teams to improve our circular economy practices across the University, particularly looking at our end of semester waste. Through interviewing our residential managers and collecting our current waste data, he was able to provide key recommendations for improving policy and communications. Here is what Jehan had to say about his internship experience with us:
What skills/knowledge from your degree have you found helpful in your role?
I am aiming for a degree in Modern History and Russian. I think studying a language requires the ability to listen and learn from others, which was very useful throughout my internship as I gathered information from the halls staff and discussed various ideas with members of the Environment team. Additionally, my studies in Modern History gave me the research skills needed to quickly acquaint myself with the terminology of sustainability and critical-thinking skills to systematically analyse the information I gathered.
What are the main benefits you have gained from this experience?
The main benefit I gained from this internship was experience in field work, as I had to go around the different halls to speak with staff and investigate sources of waste myself. Some other benefits included learning how to work on several collaborative projects with different teams simultaneously, gaining experience in how sustainability is implemented and measured in an organisation and learning to stay flexible when re-examining issues or acknowledging errors.
What key skills have you developed through this internship? Can you give some specific examples of when you used and developed these skills?
The key skills I developed during this internship were personal time management and independent goal setting. I developed time management skills as I was given a broad weekly overview for the internship and was expected to plan the specifics of my schedule myself to ensure that I met various deadlines. Goal setting was developed when identifying the areas of study that would contribute to the overall objective of implementing a circular economy. This also included creating metrics that could be used to track future progress.
What might you have done differently during your placement?
I think I would have liked to do a lot more fieldwork as I simply wasn’t able to get around the halls as much as I would have wanted due to logistical constraints. A lot of my work ended up focusing on just the two largest halls (ABH and DRA) which made me feel like I had neglected the smaller ones. Additionally, there were some investigative dead ends that I pursued which, in hindsight, could have freed up more time for other tasks if I had chosen to disengage sooner.
What is next for you in your employability journey?
This internship has provided me with valuable working experience in a data-driven role involving both data collection and analysis. I am grateful to the University for providing me with such an amazing opportunity and hope that my work proves useful. My future employability plans are to get more hands-on experience in a data-driven or sustainability-focused role to continue building my skills in this field.
Thank you, Jehan!
Thank you, Jehan, for this excellent work. We have had a great experience hosting student interns again this summer. Please keep an eye out on the Careers Centre website if you are interested in interning with the Environment team in 2026.
