What We Did In Our Summer!

Read on to find out what some of our committee got up to this summer!

Evelyn Morgan, a fourth-year student in Chemical Engineering and the Written Communications committee member for Watt Women, shares some of the highlights of her summer placement experience.

Over the summer I completed my industrial placement working with the Sustainability team at Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN). The final three summer months of my placement involved a major Business Plan submission, and I also stepped up to take on more responsibility within the team. With the exception of my one week break between the end of placement and the start of semester, I can safely say that my summer was a busy one!

SPEN are the electricity transmission and distribution network operator for areas in Central and Southern Scotland as well as parts of England and Wales. As a regulated business, SPEN must submit plans to the regulator, Ofgem, detailing proposals to maintain and improve the network, ultimately for consumer benefit. In a process known as a price control, Ofgem determine the minimum outputs that DNOs must provide in each time period, and Ofgem ultimately determine the revenues that may be collected by SPEN.

For the duration of my placement, I supported the development of the RIIO-ED2 electricity distribution network price control plans for 2023 to 2028. My efforts predominantly focussed on supporting SPEN to develop environmental strategies, initiatives and commitments to reflect SPEN’s sustainability ambitions.

With publication of the RIIO-ED2 Draft Business Plan and other regulatory submissions at the start of July, the beginning of my summer was an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ effort to finalise plans, strategies and figures, as well as have everything signed off by senior management. With a large and detailed range of plans to include in our Environmental Action Plan, my direct supervisor and I divided up drafting of sections, as well as actioning feedback and comments from our team. Our plans and commitments were published on the 1st July and a shiny copy of the Business Plan has pride of place on my bookshelf.

Following July submission, my supervisor and I regrouped to begin project planning for the period up to Final Plan Submission. By prioritising the weaknesses in our plans, as well as areas where we could drive further ambition, we created and assigned a list of tasks, and mapped these to the high-level deliverables needed by the project management team. Gaining experience of setting up programme plans for such a large, complex project has given me the confidence to be able to effectively organise and plan my university group projects.

In the last months of my placement, I also had the confidence to ask (politely!) for opportunities outside my typical remit. I supported the SPEN COO at a business-focussed Hub group, presenting on a proposed sustainability Charter as well as drafting reports for the COO to present at the Board group. Beyond this, I also led the development of a new tool to inform SPEN management of the efficiency of engineering programmes from an environmental economics standpoint. Having this leadership experience, even if for only a short time, has given me the confidence to know that I can lead a team, and has also helped me identify areas I need to improve on.

My summer was an opportunity for me to put into practice the skills and knowledge I’d developed over my placement. These summer months were undoubtedly the time in my placement where I made the largest and most valuable contribution to my team and our tasks. My summer experience allowed me to refine my communication skills, gain more self-confidence and have the chance to develop leadership skills in a professional environment.

As I return to university, I intend to keep taking opportunities to boost my leadership and teamworking skills, and taking the time to become more confident in my abilities, whether that be when presenting, leading or applying for internships. And hopefully I will be applying for more Scottish Power opportunities too! 😉

Kirsty Mitchell, a fifth-year Chemical Engineering student and the President of Watt Women, shares some of the highlights of her summer placement experience.

This summer I completed an internship with Social Good Connect (SGC). They are a not-for-profit organisation who are connectors for good. They use a search-and-match platform to match employee volunteers with charities who have open volunteering opportunities.

They are still a start-up company as they only launched in March 2020 therefore, they are a small team but a fantastic team to be a part of! As such they had no official internship program which led me to have a much less traditional internship experience than some of my peers will have had.

In the first couple of weeks of my internship I got to know how the business works by spending time with everyone and learning each of their different roles. In my first week I even got to take part in their monthly company meeting and learned about all the ongoing projects and the targets for the next month and the next quarter. This gave me a great insight into the business and how it runs, everyone contributing their individual goals as well as the company having overall goals.

My main role for the summer was an ‘engagement coordinator’ for the charities team. My responsibilities involved researching charities in different areas of the UK and outreaching to those charities who were looking for volunteers. I was then the charities’ key contact during the onboarding process. This involved answering email queries, having meetings, doing product demonstrations, helping the charity to create their platform profile and upload their volunteering opportunities. During my 12 weeks I successfully onboarded 14 charities.

I also took part in a communications project during my internship. Alongside my other responsibilities I lead and designed a communications email that went to over 80 clients. The aim of the piece was to help charities upload the most eye-catching volunteering opportunities and identify roles where they could use volunteers that they might not have thought of before.

My favourite part of my internship was learning about the huge range of volunteering opportunities a charity can have. SGC wants everyone to find their perfect volunteering opportunity and therefore they help charities to identify and promote ‘non-traditional’ volunteering opportunities. Volunteering in 2021 isn’t just planting a garden or painting a wall anymore….it can be helping to run a social media account, befriending someone in need, creating an animation for a website or even becoming a trustee!

I was lucky enough to be asked to continue my role beyond my internship. I will be keeping all my key roles and responsibilities from my summer internship, as well as taking on new weekly roles including updating key documents presented to potential clients.

Although this internship was completely unrelated to my degree, I absolutely love working for SGC and I use so many of the soft skills I have developed across my degree in my role. I also became the ‘excel wiz’ in the team – a role I am very happy to fill!