What made you want to study Environment at Cranfield?

I have been interested in environmental sustainability for years, and I did my undergraduate dissertation in circularity within the fashion industry. A lot of my modules for my undergraduate course were around responsibility and sustainability. It was actually my dissertation tutor who recommended Cranfield and the specific course to me. In chats with him he said, “I know the perfect course if you did want to do a masters.” At first, I wasn’t going to do one, but I decided that because of lockdown, I didn’t want to just waste a year.

I then looked at Cranfield University and saw the reputation it has with industry. I mentioned it to my Dad, and he said, “I would be the proudest father ever if you went to Cranfield. We used to love hiring people from Cranfield!”

Tell us a bit more about your group project?

We are working for the OxCam Arc Environment Group. They’ve created a set of Environmental Principles for the region, and they want to be an exemplar area for industry, governance, and the people.

Our project is all about building a framework for a route map that they can then implement across the principles. We are looking at how we can help them on this journey, and what the barriers or opportunities might be. We are interviewing people from a range of industries, and councils to find out the answers for them.

Are you working with students from different courses in your project team?

Yes, there’s only four of us so it’s a small group! One is a friend from my course already and then the other two are from Environmental Engineering MSc, which is great as previously they had probably been the group that we have interacted least with throughout the year. 

We have had quite a lot of interaction with Future Food Sustainability MSc, and various other courses in the school of Environment, as well as the School of Management. But it’s good to get different mindsets on it and our brains clearly work very differently! We are all able to bring different experiences to the group.

Have you been able to use any of the knowledge or skills you learnt during the modules term in your group project?

100% – the strategy module is directly related to this and is almost the follow-on to the project that we did for that module. This part is something that we learnt about in theory – and now we’re putting it into practice.

Over the whole course, I’ve learned so much about industries that I would never have looked at before. Previously my knowledge on environmental sustainability has tended to be about stuff that I’m interested in, for example the fashion industry. Now my interests have completely changed! 

Having been part of this project and looking at sustainable urban development, we have learnt about agriculture and that is something I just would never have thought I would be interested in! All of those interests and knowledge are coming into play with this project, and then will hopefully come into play with whatever I do after.

The course has opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities that are out there that I just would never have even looked at or clicked on before. You never know, it might 180° before the end of the course! But it is all very exciting! I have started looking at jobs now and I’m getting excited about it, whereas before, it was a very scary prospect and something I did not feel 100% ready for. 

What are you looking forward to as you complete your group project?

I’m looking forward to seeing what we get done and getting feedback from the Arc Group. We had a meeting with a team from the group a few weeks into the project and we got some really beneficial feedback.

Find out more about Cranfield’s MSc courses in Environment and Agrifood.