Our current placement students in the Climate Action Team, Angelica Reyes Caceres and Vasudef Vasanthan, shed light on their experiences working here at the University. They’ve been part of the team since August 2023, and their time will soon be drawing to a close.

They have shared some of their insights from working behind the scenes:

Angelica Reyes Caceres

3rd year Politics & International Relations student

As we approach the end of our placement, I feel that the year has flown by and this has made me realise how much I developed my skills during this short time. Starting with managing webpages and creating communication pieces to then having the responsibility for planning and overseeing key campaigns for the team, these experiences I’ve gained would’ve only been possible working with a small team, such as the Climate Action team, where responsibilities and trust develop more rapidly.

 

Working with the team has been very positive, yet eye-opening. I am happy that through my internship, I’ve been able to directly impact my community and help push for initiatives that support our collective wellbeing, the local area and most importantly, our planet. However, I also realised that embedding fundamental changes is not a simple task but a journey that takes time and perseverance. Through events such as Taking Action at Bath, Green Week, and our annual Climate Action Awards, I’ve seen that our community is filled with individuals who strive to make positive change. Witnessing people’s determination within the team and from key advocates has been genuinely inspiring. Furthermore, working with the team, you get to find out some pretty interesting information that isn’t known by the average student, for example, learning the carbon footprint of each faculty.

 

The team welcomed Vasudef and me; they valued our unique experiences as students, and we could give an insight into the student community and our suggestions were never undermined. We utilised this knowledge when figuring out how to engage with students, organising events and developing different forms of publicity. Both of us have excelled these past 11 months and look forward to keeping close ties with the team as we transition to being full-time students again.

 

Looking forward, I think it would be interesting to go into a graduate job that merges politics and climate and sustainability, whether that is through the civil service, an NGO or international organisations. My time here has provided me with an invaluable experience, and I'm confident it will set me apart from the crowd when applying for jobs during my final year!

Vasudef Vasanthan

3rd year Mechanical Engineering student

Most of my work with the Climate Action Team revolved around data, but that certainly wasn't the only thing that I was able to get involved with. I am very grateful for the opportunities during my placement year that have allowed me to develop my soft skills as well, such as being part of multiple social media campaigns, facilitating Climate Fresk workshops, as well as conducting interviews to analyse buying habits in the University. An important thing that I learnt during the year is the art of presenting data. You can spend hours presenting all the data you can extract from your sources, but if you do not have your audience in mind and the story you want to tell with the data, you will end up dumping a lot of information that your audience cannot relate to. It is imperative that you focus on the message you want to get across to your audience, and use your data to paint that story that words cannot otherwise.

 

Thinking of the future, I am looking forward to starting my career (in 2 years). I am very keen to work in the public transport sector if given the opportunity (like bus or rail companies). I feel that public transport has high potential to reduce global emissions, and making public transport accessible by having a good network at an affordable cost is what I am aiming to achieve if I work in this industry. Working this past year has made me realise that change is slow, but it is happening – we have a large community of staff and students who are working together to make progressive and innovative change, and I am motivated to return as a student to help the University embed climate action.