{"id":226450,"date":"2025-03-05T07:01:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T12:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=226450"},"modified":"2025-03-05T11:22:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T16:22:23","slug":"for-uconn-students-the-future-is-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/03\/for-uconn-students-the-future-is-green\/","title":{"rendered":"For UConn Students, the Future is Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmental consciousness, sustainability, and related subjects are crucial topics that touch on countless aspects of life – and, as UConn students recently learned, they can be fruitful and rewarding career paths as well.<\/p>\n

“Green Careers: Engage and Explore,” held on campus on Feb. 25, allowed students to meet potential employers, network with peers with similar interests, and hear from an alumni panel about careers based on sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cSustainability is here to stay, globally,\u201d said Betsy Mortensen, communication, outreach, and education coordinator for the Office of Sustainability. \u201cLooking at a future in a green career is a smart thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event had a mix of off-campus employers and on-campus organizations. Student-run groups such as Ecohusky, Spring Valley Student Farm, Climate and Mind Network, the Beekeeping Club, and more set up tables and shared information about their clubs.<\/p>\n

Employers including Eversource, Bartlett Tree Experts, CT Green Bank, Sustainable CT, and Greenskies had representatives in attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis panel is different in a sense that it\u2019s a little bit untraditional,\u201d said student intern Andy Zhang \u201926 (CAHNR & CLAS). \u201cWe have different niches here. There is a thrift stand and social responsibility and businesspeople. We have a lot of different perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSustainability and energy are becoming such a big topic of discussion,\u201d said Gabrielle Comella, assistant director of corporate partner relations for the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills. \u201cYou can have a green career in so many different industries that students don\u2019t realize.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of UConn\u2019s strategic plan is preparing students for careers outside of UConn, and this clearly aligns by showing the diversity of sustainability career pathways,\u201d said Mortensen. \u201cAnother tenet of the strategic plan is to power Connecticut in terms of a strong workforce, and pretty much all of the employers here have Connecticut roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Every job is a climate job’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first speaking panel featured industry leaders. Representatives from Uber, Eversource, Bartlett Tree Experts, and Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs answered students’ questions about how their companies take sustainability initiatives and how the industry is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom our perspective, every job is a climate job,\u201d said Alison Pilcher, the policy director at the CT Roundtable. \u201cEvery industry should be thinking about how climate change is going to impact their industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

April Regan, an attorney for Eversource, explained that the company is launching a clean energy innovation program with UConn. Students will have a chance to submit business ideas for \u201cclean innovation.\u201d Stakeholders from UConn and Eversource will review the proposed projects, and \u201cThe top five teams will get a little bit of money to explore their idea, and one winning team will get funding for a year,\u201d said Regan. \u201cWe\u2019re always trying to innovate, we\u2019re always trying to push the envelope, to push energy policy and environmental policy over these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five alumni took the stage for the second speaking panel, offering advice on how to navigate a career in sustainability after graduation.<\/p>\n

\"A
Andy Zhang ’26, an intern in the Office of Sustainability, asks panelists a question (George Velky \/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere are so many different avenues you can take,\u201d said Margaret Sanders ’22 (CAHNR), sustainability platform manager for Position Green<\/a>. \u201cWhether that be through further education or in the professional field, I think it\u2019s really important to be open to trying new things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panelists discussed how to stay motivated in the field when federal administration is not overtly supportive of sustainability efforts. \u201cGovernment is an interesting place. It\u2019s a big battleship, it\u2019s hard to turn,\u201d said Brendan Schain, legal director for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Environmental Quality Branch and a graduate of the UConn School of Law. \u201cThe pace of change is the change. New people with new perspectives are doing interesting things and bringing an interesting new perspective, and it takes time to institutionalize that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alumni discussed how their time at UConn helped guide them into their careers as well. Megan Coleman ’17 (ENG), an engineer for JKMuir talked about how any involvement on campus was a good experience. \u201cI was part of a lot of the different clubs here. Being engaged in those and exposing myself to different people, different perspectives, was something that what really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the opportunity to do a study abroad program for the UConn Earth Sciences Department,\u201d said Emily Bigl ’23 (CLAS), an environmental planner for the Southeastern CT Council of Governments. Bigl studied geoscience and geohazards in Taiwan thanks to the UConn program. \u201cIt\u2019s a great experience. If you can find a program relating to sustainability in the environment, that\u2019s awesome. But if you find one outside of your realm of study, that\u2019s awesome too. Broaden your horizons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders worked at the National Resources Conservation Academy while at UConn. She mentored Connecticut students and helped them execute environmental programs in their own communities. \u201cIt was fun to both see how we could take action in Connecticut and also mentor younger students on the point of intergenerational relationships,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

Office of Sustainability helps UConn chart a green course<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Office of Sustainability partnered with the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills for the event. Student interns at the Office of Sustainability contributed heavily to the preparation of the event.<\/p>\n

Zhang attributed a strong student network to building the mix of clubs, employers, and alumni coming to the event. Will Gabelman, senior manager for global strategies and operations at Uber, spoke on the first panel. Zhang was able to recruit him for the event because Gabelman was his mentor in a fellowship program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the tenth most sustainable university in the world, and the second most sustainable university in the United States,\u201d said Zhang, citing rankings from GreenMetric UI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UConn earned that title thanks to efforts from the Office of Sustainability and its interns, Zhang said, and added that there are 40 to 50 student interns this semester.<\/p>\n

The office puts together an Earth Day event annually, and is trying to pilot an environmental justice program, according to Kanika Chaturvedi \u201926 (CLAS), an intern in the office.<\/p>\n

The give-and-go program is another initiative where the Office of Sustainability collects donations from students who are moving out. Things like clothing, furniture, and appliances are reused rather than discarded. Last year, the program diverted 8,000 pounds of waste from landfills, and \u201cthis year they are looking to double that,” said Chaturvedi. The group also collaborates with the town of Mansfield to organize litter cleanup events.<\/p>\n

A project Zhang has been working on is an E-collaboration sustainability network. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a virtual platform that I think it helps break down a lot of the academic barriers that you see,\u201d said Zhang. It has grown to 240 members and contains things like weekly internship postings and relevant studies posted by professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to see sustainability manifest in a lot of different facets,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cEven at the business school or the engineering school, regardless of what your major is, it\u2019s becoming commonplace to have environmental opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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