From College to EESI to Community Solar: Two Friends Journey into Renewable Energy | Article

EESI is proud to offer a paid internship program for college students to gain experience in environmental policy, communications, and nonprofit development. Each semester, we are honored to mentor (and learn from) four or five talented and passionate young professionals.

Our spring 2020 cohort was no exception. Phoebe and Uma were already best friends from George Washington University when they started at EESI, and after they left, they both were hired by Nexamp, a community solar organization in Massachusetts. They share their reflections on their time with EESI and their new careers:

Uma Atre, EESI Communications & Policy Intern, Spring 2020

My time at EESI took place during a very unique time in my life. I started as the Communications & Policy Intern in January 2020, having just finished my undergraduate program, and like everyone else, I was completely unaware that the world was about to experience its first pandemic in over a century. The support system EESI's staff provided helped me charge through the tough transition of graduating and landing a job during a global health and economic crisis.

I currently work for Nexamp, a community solar company. I serve as an Account Specialist, which is a customer-facing role. My job requires a wide range of skills, but most importantly it requires me to have a curious mind and to communicate in creative ways. Customers call in with a range of questions and concerns, all with different levels of understanding of how community solar works. This means I have to change my explanations and examples from person to person. My internship at EESI gave me a lot of practice being a flexible, effective communicator. Writing articles and creating social media content taught me how to relay complicated environmental and energy policy issues to the everyday person.

Being with EESI not only gave me practice on adapting different communication styles, it also gave me the support to adapt professionally to working during quarantine. The care, attention, and accessibility of all staff members got me through the difficult transition from full-time student to entering the job market during the pandemic. Although the entire staff contributed to this, I need to give a special thanks to Dan O., Anna, Amber, Sydney, and Amaury, for providing me direct support in whichever way I needed, no matter how busy or hectic their schedules were.

Without EESI, I would not have the skills, perspective, or drive that I have now.

Phoebe Bride, EESI Development Intern, Spring 2020

I would like to start by saying how grateful I am for the opportunity to write this reflection. Although my time at EESI was brief and my time in the physical office space even briefer, I learned a great deal in that short amount of time as a Development Intern.

EESI gave me the space to grow as a young professional and offered me the time and resources to figure out what I am passionate about. While I am not currently working in the field of nonprofit development, the skills I learned as a development intern at EESI enabled me to pursue my current career. EESI taught me how to be more diligent and efficient with my time, taught me how to prioritize my work, and also to dive deeper into the things I’m interested in.

As any EESI intern knows, this organization fosters individuality and encourages you to step outside the particular field you’re interning in, and look into other facets of the organization that might pique your interest as well. EESI supports its interns so graciously, providing valuable professional and personal advice—something I am extremely grateful for.

As I look back on my internship, I recognize how much I learned about the field of nonprofit development and the incredibly necessary, but always challenging, work of policy advocacy. I also recognize how much I grew as a person, coming in with little confidence in my professionalism, I left feeling more self-confident and ready to face what lay ahead.

So, thank YOU, EESI. You gave me an incredible opportunity to study and learn about the environmental field, something I will never stop being passionate about, and helped me grow as a person and professional.

To all current and future EESI interns, soak up every minute, it’s gold.

Authors: Uma Atre and Phoebe Bride

Read more about EESI’s spring, summer, and fall internships and get information on how to apply here.