Together against difficulties

 

Martin Reith - Environmental Consultation

My time at RWTH University began in october 2010 with Georesources Management (GRM). In the fifth semester, I took the opportunity to do an ERASMUS semester abroad and in the winter semester of 2012 I went to Iceland to the Háskóli-Íslands in Reykjavík. There I discovered my enthusiasm for environmental and sustainability issues and was able to gain my first practical experience in an authority after the semester abroad. Due to the large number of exams and the wide range of topics, the first bachelor's semesters were very challenging for me. I learned that these hurdles are best to overcome in a team through learning groups and mutual support. This makes it more fun to celebrate the successes together afterwards!

After completing my bachelor's degree, I decided to stay in Aachen and continued with a master's degree specializing in Resource Management (ROM). Since practical relevance was very important to me alongside my studies, I completed two further internships in the field of environmental protection and sustainability during my master’s degree. The second internship in Sustainability at E.ON SE in Essen in 2016 gave me the opportunity to write my thesis there. Here I dealt with the topic of environmental management systems and life cycle considerations and was supervised by Prof. Dr. Kukla.

I finally came into contact with KPMG AG through my work at E.ON and started my first “real” job there in 2017. In the Energy & Technical Services and Sustainability Services department in Cologne, I got to know a variety of exciting topics and clients. In essence, I support companies from a wide variety of industries in setting up or improving their (ISO)-management systems in the areas of environment, quality, occupational safety and energy and thus get a wide range of insights and keep learning. I also support checking emissions data for European emissions trading (EU ETS) and can look back on some adventurous business trips to offshore plants. In the consulting business in particular, it is often important to be able to quickly familiarize yourself with new topics professionally. The variaty of GRM courses prepared me very well for this challenge.

Basically, I can recommend all students, especially in the GRM area, to gain their first practical experience during their studies. This has helped me a lot in determining what is important to me in my job and which topics I enjoy. In addition, for many potential employers, exciting internships or experience abroad are more interesting than studying within the standard study time or outstanding academic achievements.