In Their Words: Intern Carly Freeman

This series highlights the most important people involved with the Alliance's Green Campus Program: our interns! The program employs more than 75 university and college students across California to implement energy efficiency projects at their campuses. See the entire In Their Words series.

In Carly's Words

• Name: Carly Freeman
• Campus: California State University, Chico
• Studying: Business Administration, minor in Sustainability

I was fortunate to have an internship with the Green Campus Program, something I wasn’t very sure of at first – nor where my parents. I am from New York and my parents already were thinking I came to California for college at Chico State to become a hippie. This wasn’t the case; I applied for the Green Campus internship to gain more experience within the field of energy. This internship was a great experience because what I did mattered.  I was not just organizing files and getting people coffee (what most people think an internship is).  

For example, I was the lead for a project called SCOOP, “Sustainable Consultations of Office Practices.” I was very interested in consulting as a career path and our group was an opportunity to gain hands-on experience. We were considered a professional group at Chico State.  We performed green office consultations throughout campus, including a recommendation report that taught staff about sustainable behavioral change.  Meanwhile, Green Campus trained us to use energy auditing tools while making connections with important people on campus.  Our work was much appreciated: One day, I went to my business advising office to add a class that was already full – the woman working in the office remembered I had just done an audit there, and she helped get me into the class!  

The experience I gained from this internship not only taught me professional business skills, it showed me that you could find something you want to do and love doing –  which is something that is very rare in this world.