Chelsie Love MEnvSci Environmental Science

Hi, I'm Chelsie Love and I studied MEnvSci Environmental Science within Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton.

The work based placement helped me to secure my current role working as a Graduate Environmental Consultant for Ramboll UK.

I really enjoyed mu course. I think it's difficult to motivate yourself in the first year as university is a completely different experience, however that soon changes! There is such a huge range of modules to choose from that you can essentially tailor your degree to be as specialised or as broad as you want despite its overarching "Environmental Science" title.

The Exeter field work course was fab. We really got to know everyone on the course and it was good to get some hands on experience and get out of a lecture theatre - it was good fun. I know it's a bit boring, but from an academic and professional point of view, the modules covered in the master's year were brilliant, they were hard work but they really help to set you up for the working environment and the experience you gain sets you apart from the crowd.

I did my work based placement at Ramboll UK, a global engineering and consultancy company. It was for three months and it was such good experience. I was lucky to be able to get stuck in to lots of different projects and site visits which made it all the more interesting.

The placement helped me to secure my current role working for Ramboll UK! The company has a long standing history with the University of Southampton and the graduates that come from the University are really employable, with a good balance of academic and social skills and experience in a number of disciplines, something that really stands out to employers when applying for jobs. Alongside lectures, the faculty ran loads of employability events to help students when applying for jobs and also to give them an idea of potential future careers. I think that this really helped when applying and interviewing for jobs. The University is ranked in the Top 10 in the Times Good University Guide for its Environmental Science course which in itself stands out on a CV when moving on from University! The experience I had at Ramboll UK was brilliant and even if I hadn't been employed by them, I think everything that I learned over the summer would have helped enormously when applying and interviewing for jobs.

I'm currently employed as a Graduate Environmental Consultant. I work within the Environment and Planning department at Ramboll UK and am part of a multi-disciplinary team with specialists in contaminated land, air quality and ecology, to name just a few! The work we do can be broadly considered as Environmental Management and ranges from writing reports to support planning applications to travelling across the world to assist with major international projects. No day is the same in my office! Since starting my role, I've completed a number of air quality assessments for planning applications, a carbon accounting project for a school which just wanted to reduce its environmental impact, I'm in the process of writing a socio-economic and leisure and recreation chapter for an EIA and I'm also involved with writing the climate change chapter for an environmental assessment for a massive project in the Middle East. It's difficult to describe exactly what I do as it's so varied from day to day but that's what I love about it - it's never boring!