Lucas
History intern with Evolving Forests
“Studying history at university gave me the skills to work professionally, but it was nice to have industry experience, working with a client to fill their needs.”
Internships that compliment your studies
Industry experience enabled Lucas to discover new career paths
A clear vision
Lucas completed a successful internship at Evolving Forests, and is grateful for the experience of working within an industry setting. Although he has a clear vision on where he wants his future to go as a graduate, the internship broadened his knowledge on the different directions his history degree could take him.
“My internship was with an organisation called Evolving Forests and they are interested in forestry in the UK, applications of forestry, and they’re looking into the history of British forestry at the moment. My role was to research the Canadian Forestry Corps, who were in Devon during the first world war, based near Newton Abbott, and they were felling trees in the area to supply the British Army in France.”
As a mature student, Lucas had prior work experience in retail and sales, but believes his internship assisted his journey from a student to a professional within the industry.
“The internship was the first job I’ve had doing history professionally. Obviously, studying history at university gave me the skills to do it, but it was nice to have that kind of industry experience, working with a client to fill their needs. So, it's a good insight into how it’s done professionally.”
Lucas has decided to stay at Plymouth to complete his Master’s in Maritime History.
“That was the idea all along – I don’t think the internship itself has changed what I wanted to do, but it’s certainly given that industry experience, given me an idea of the working environment. My whole plan was to just go into academia and try and do a PhD and stay in university, but it has given me an idea of what you can do with history outside of academia, in an industry setting.”
Substantial contributions
Upon the culmination of the research project Jez Ralph, Founder and Director of Evolving Forests, was impressed with the work undertaken by Lucas and his fellow interns.
The students made substantial and consistent contributions that positively impacted the project's success and quality.
The work of Lucas has contributed to an ongoing research project on the history and future of woodlands in Devon. The element Lucas has been involved in is an area of this history we could not have covered in-house, we would not would have had a budget for it but it provides some vital elements to the narrative we are developing.
His work has opened up some significant questions around the history of the Forestry Commission and forestry policy in the UK. The experience has encouraged us to continue our collaboration with the university and will hopefully lead to some long-term research projects.
Unique opportunities
As an Associate Professor of World History and Oral History,
Dr Darren Aoki
guides students in utilising visual and oral sources for historical research. He has worked with the Industry Liaison Team to create and develop multiple student internships through his connections in the heritage and public history sectors.
Evolving Forests
One of the ways that we try to help students and give them a unique opportunity is by working with external partners, and I've developed a number of different partnership organisations, one of which is Evolving Forests.
Evolving Forests began life in 2014 as Timber Strategies – the aim was to push together all the exciting elements of our past lives in forestry, woodland regeneration and timber into a business that inhabited the expanse between tree growing and timber use. It felt like an area that was little understood and well overdue to erupt in meaning and colour.
In all of the internships that the students have done there is a public history facing element. It is the translation of academic research into a format that should be much more accessible to the general public. So, museums, heritage centres, the whole public history infrastructure, what the students are doing on the internships is actually working in that area and starting to build their own experience base in that sector.
Dr Darren Aoki
Associate Professor of World History and Oral History
