EMBI Internship
Start Making
a Difference
Learn on the job while taking action toward a sustainable future.
Gain real-world experience and make a tangible impact with the Environmental Management and Business Institute (EMBI) internship program. As a student enrolled in the sustainability minor, you'll have the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge to meaningful projects aimed at fostering environmental stewardship and driving sustainable practices.
What to Expect as an EMBI Intern
The EMBI internship program is designed to provide you with challenging, unique and rewarding opportunities to apply environmental practices. At the partner organizations, you'll evaluate environmental issues, identify possible solutions, assess their feasibility and financial benefits and ultimately implement the best solutions when possible.
Challenging Opportunities
Dive into diverse projects across sectors like municipalities, healthcare, energy and agriculture, where you'll evaluate environmental issues, propose solutions and implement sustainable strategies.
Hands-On Learning
Keep track of your daily activities, technical queries and project progress through detailed logs and bi-weekly progress reports. Engage in frequent meetings with your supervisors to align on project objectives and goals.
Final Showcase
Compile a comprehensive final report and deliver presentations to both the sponsoring organization and EMBI, highlighting your findings, recommendations and the impact of your work.
Intern Communication
Regular communication between you, EMBI and the sponsoring organization is crucial for the project to be successful. As n EMBI intern, following these procedures helps your internship project run more smoothly.
Daily Work Log
Keep a daily log, either in a notebook or a digital file documenting your activities each workday. Some examples of what could be recorded include:
- activities for the day
- technical questions that arose
- any observations or assumptions
- project data & progress
- meeting notes
- resource people, their expertise & contact information
Bi-Weekly Progress Reports
Submit progress reports every other Friday (unless another schedule is agreed) to both your EMBI advisor and sponsoring organization supervisor. Progress reports should provide a short explanation of what you have been doing, as well as any conclusions or results you have made.
Meetings
Neet with your supervisor at the sponsoring organization on a frequent basis and have regular, bi-weekly meetings with your EMBI advisor. The meetings may take place at UW-Green Bay, the intern's sponsoring organization or over the phone.
Internship Projects
You will need to address project objectives and specific goals in the timeline developed with your supervisor. The end result of the internship project should be a positive learning experience for you, and cost-effective solutions for the sponsoring partner organization.
Goals
Due to the wide variety of sponsoring organizations that partner with EMBI, it is important for you to establish specific goals to complete your project. These goals should be reasonable and attainable, and most likely unique, compared to other interns at other sponsoring organizations. At the end of the project, look over these goals, and determine if they were too vague, too specific, not realistic, etc., or if they were manageable goals.
Objectives
Due to the uniqueness of each project, the objectives will be accomplished in different ways and to different extents. However, the broad objectives of each project should be as follows:
- Identify projects and opportunities that are important to the sponsoring organization.
- Research the feasibility of all possible solutions by talking to employees, distributors, management and anyone else who may be able to help. Keep in mind that the employees are much more familiar with the manufacturing processes, so respect their opinion.
- Analyze opportunities from a technical and economic perspective to determine the feasibility of implementation.
- Implement any technically feasible, cost effective solutions if time allows.
Final Report & Presentation
As an EMBI intern, you'll compile a comprehensive final report, documenting the problem, solution process, feasibility and implementation plan. You'll present this report to both the sponsoring organization and EMBI, ensuring clarity and thoroughness in your explanations.
Final Report
Work on the final report throughout the internship in order to be completed by the end of your internship. The report should:
- thoroughly explain the problem(s), steps taken, solutions found, feasibility and level of implementation
- be comprehensive, with clear reasoning for each step
- be reviewed by the EMBI advisor and supervisor (to ensure accuracy and format)
Sponsor Presentation
Present findings and recommendations to help assure stakeholders (intern supervisor, employees involved, decision-making upper management) that the ideas are viable options for the sponsoring organization to pursue. The length and scheduling of the presentation will be flexible to the sponsor organization's needs and will include:
- the purpose of the project
- what processes were looked at changing
- recommendations & defense
- time allocated for questions
EMBI Presentation
Deliver a separate presentation to EMBI and the UW-Green Bay community, summarizing key points from their report without disclosing proprietary information. You'll adhere to a provided PowerPoint template and may include visuals with the sponsoring organization's approval. You'll have 20 minutes to present, and five minutes to answer questions. The presentation photographed, video recorded and/or audio recorded.
Meet an EMBI Intern
"It was the EMBI program that motivated me to seek out internships...I learned so much from that internship that I would have never learned sitting in a class... but that's the beauty of internships... Internships are honestly the best way to gain a real-world experience before you're actually involved in the real world."
Marissa Michalkiewicz
EMBI Intern
Business Administration Major
Ready to Dive In?
Whether you're passionate about environmental advocacy or eager to explore sustainability in various industries, the EMBI internship program offers a valuable opportunity to make a difference while honing your skills.