Faculty of Science and Technology

Building on the success of LEC's graduate consultancy programme, the Lancaster Environment Centre and the university's careers department successfully recently secured funding from HEFCE to provide a programme of paid summer internships for undergraduate students across LEC degree schemes.

The internships were an ideal opportunity for students to make their CV stand out from the crowd and be more attractive to potential future employers by providing the opportunity to gain valuable experiences of applying what they learned in the lecture theatre, within a small local business.

The students, a mixture of 2nd year students and recently graduated 3rd years, after being successfully interviewed, completed 2-week internships across 23 companies in the region with several students completing multiple internships throughout the summer.

The majority of the work involved looking at the carbon and water footprint of these companies as well as providing experience of working as a consultant and interacting with private sector firms.

Chris Betteridge, one of the students explained "the internships were a great chance to gain experience working with different sizes of business, and in different sectors also. This experience has also considerably boosted my CV, and the use of carbon footprinting software was great preparation for my forthcoming Master's course in Energy and the Environment".

Andrew Beswick from St Helens Chamber of Commerce assisted the scheme by introducing a number of the businesses for the students to work with, speaking about the scheme he explains "all the companies involved in the project gave very positive feedback on the students and the reports. I am currently working with companies to implement the recommendations given in the reports".

David Ainsworth, LEC's Student Placement Manager explains "The internships have been a great success, providing students with opportunities to gain excellent real-world experience. Being able to pay the students really enhanced their experiences, and a number of students have been successful in securing real jobs with their host companies following their internships. We were delighted by the feedback from students and companies and hope to grow the scheme next summer".

For more information about the internships or any of our graduate consultancy schemes contact David Ainsworth on 01524 510 586.

Fri 07 January 2011