Ben's 12 week Internship with Adnams

So 12 weeks are finally up! It would have been good to be able to keep a more regular blog, however when in the "real world" (post-student life) you end up having a lot less time to yourself. I had not gone in to this internship unprepared however as I had been in this situation but a couple of years ago as part of my degree. That was for a whole year. During that time I learnt many business skills, which soon started flooding back. It was good however to have the previous experience, as not only do you feel less like the black sheep amongst the office, but I can tell you know experience is invaluable these days as I overheard my manager say it was my previous experience that got me this internship.

Being too busy is not exactly the end of the world, as the last thing you want from an internship is to sit there most days twiddling your thumbs because the company have not planned what you are to do. This was not the case for Adnams as I had been hired to assist in the completion of a very specific project they were undertaking. It was described to me at the interview as a research position into collating all the data needed to calculate a carbon footprint Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for all their bottled beers. Not to steal a well-known wood preservatives motto but "I did exactly what it said on the tin". I applied for this internship because of my brand new knowledge from my Environmental Sciences degree and my similar experiences from my year in industry. It sounded like a great three months experience.

I was based in Southwold at their, moderately recent, energy efficient brewery and worked closely with the Head Brewer. I started off my role with Adnams, getting to grips with the British Standards specifications that surrounded the production a carbon LCA for beer. I was also working closely with Adapt Low Carbon Group at UEA who had done previous work with Adnams. Once my head was screwed on tightly with what my role was I began undertaking, what ended up being a large lump of my placement, data collection from the brewing stage of the lifecycle. This included taking constant energy readings (electricity, gas, water etc.) and converting these into usage. I was often buried in Microsoft Excel producing spread sheets of data which are eventually to be used in a tool that converts such data to carbon dioxide equivalents released to the atmosphere. This may sound like a menial task but it turns out companies most likely won’t have the data you need in the forms you need it in, so was quite a challenge in the end. Aside from this main focus I also had to collect data from across the whole lifecycle of an Adnams beer. This included talking to the farmers, who grow the raw ingredients (identifying information such as amount of fertilizer used) all the way through to the ‘use phase’ which included identifying the average length of time a user refrigerated the beer before use.

The progression seemed a little slow at start but then again as most of you will know, from a dissertation, the data collection phase can take a lot longer than anticipated. I soon got into it and with concise work with others the project and its outcomes were soon in full swing. I must admit now however, I have been holding back on a vital bit of information; which is that the task in hand was not completed within my internship period. This whole process was a steep learning curve for both me and Adnams as they did not know whether such a project would take one month or one year. Because of this they were generally happy with my progress as long as progression could be seen. When it came to the end of my 12 weeks there had been speculation on my position, and sure enough, every cloud has a silver lining and this was no different, for they have just offered me an extended contract to continue with the project (on a much better salary may I add).

This internship was really suited to a recent graduate as it soon became clear of the similarities between it and a final year dissertation. My internship was a highly valuable data collection period, with my next three months here suited to the results and discussion sections. This will include production of a report, analysis of results and future recommendations, including areas to focus on reducing emissions. Eventually the verified results will be published for the public to see. Who know maybe I’ll also be able to explore my interest within marketing when it comes to it.

I think all in all for my 12 weeks, the biggest skills I had to demonstrate was the ability to seamlessly integrate into the working life, which my year in industry certainly helped with. It means the people you work with can rely on you to be able to get on with your task in the knowledge that you know how to act and the skills to demonstrate. Knowledge in Microsoft Excel was also very useful for my role, and the confidence to talk to others. The internship programme has definitely got me up on my feet after graduation, and who knows may have even found me a career.