Work experience in the New Forest
PUBLISHED ON: 10 JANUARY 2024Introduction
Hi, my name is Bryn Mitchell. I have spent the last three days fulfilling my work experience with the New Forest National Park Authority (NPA) communications team, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here and learnt many new things surrounding the field of work.
One of my favourite moments have been expressing my ideas and meeting new people, the office is a haven of suggestions and design, helping me to curate and start on my goals and ambitions.
Furthermore, having an insight into other people’s work life has been very interesting and helped me to think about my own future and what I want to do and accomplish.
About me
I am a first-year student at Brockenhurst College undertaking three a-levels: Biology, Geography and Media studies. I hoped to incorporate all of my courses into my work experience and wanted to explore each of them thoroughly during my time at the NPA. This was a challenge as I only had three days to do so, but nevertheless I believe I have done just that. I felt challenged during this time and overcame many difficulties with the enthusiastic help of others I now call my friends.
What I did
My work experience started with an induction, filling out various paperwork and a tour of the office. We than swiftly moved on to my first task of the week, battling the cold. I joined a ranger, and we travelled around the New Forest looking for odd jobs to complete whilst looking for interesting plants on the wet heathland. On this outing we went litter-picking, reported a broken gate and found various plants and animals and some interesting lichen species. When we returned, I wrote a social media post for the NPA various social accounts. The post surrounded the importance of heathland and how it supports lots of biodiversity and used the ‘matchstick lichen’ we found as an example of this. One social media post later I finished the first day- I have linked one of the posts below.
Over the next two days, I completed many more tasks and dipped my fingers into new careers, experiences, platforms and technology. I learnt lots surrounding the communications department, what they do and who they work with.
Networking was one of my personal highlights, as on the second day I accompanied the education team on a walking talking meeting where I met many new people, something really intrigued me about how other people perceive things, view life and what they choose to do with it. The diversity of people I met emphasised this as older people had very different ideas to younger people. This is where I believe I may have helped as I am a younger person with new fresh ideas. An example of this is when I was talking to a Freshwater Habitats Trust (FHT) worker, and she needed ideas to reach out to a younger audience ranging from 16-25. I collected her details in case I had any more ideas and hope to link her and the FHT up with my college as a branch of geography, which I am involved in.
Why I chose this placement
I have always grown up with nature on my doorstep and never seemed to notice is at much or realise how lucky I am to have it. In recent years I have opened my eyes and become more interested in nature and the world, my A-level courses help me to experiment deeper in this field and my work experience has propelled me further in this direction. I have started thinking about my future more and what career I want to follow.
Overall, my time at the NPA has been loved, many great opportunities and hands on activities have filled my week and given me a deep insight into what it’s like to work here.
Below is the post I created and produced during my time here:
