Last updated 15:37, Friday, 27 June 2008

Alex Stewart: Nuclear Graduate

SOON to be one of the area’s bright young talents – now there’s a quote that fills me with dread! How am I ever going to live up to that?

Then it occurred to me: 1,300-plus applicants and only 12 successful graduates and I am one of them – clearly somebody saw something in me that suggested I was good enough. All I have to do now is not prove them wrong!

Since the induction training finished, a lot has changed. I’ve made the transition from Workington to my new house in Whitehaven, a move that wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it would be.

I’m living with two of the other nuclear graduates and four more are around the corner.

I’ve attempted to show them the sights and sounds of Cumbria and nights out in Whitehaven, and they managed to have a night out in Workington in my absence.

I won’t say which they preferred but they are rapidly discovering that six months of living in Cumbria isn’t going to be as bad as they first thought, something that they were sceptical about only a few weeks ago.

So, I’m now five weeks in, and if you were to ask me what a typical week for an environmental graduate in the NDA was, I couldn’t tell you: I haven’t had one yet.

In my first week I was at a safety conference in Nottingham, an event at which I engaged with safety reps, dined with the chief executive of the NDA and put my four years of pub quizzes at the union to good use – who’d have thought knowing Scotland were the world champions of elephant polo would ever be useful information!

Since then I’ve been kept busy. I’ve looked at European environmental legislation, worked with the NDA’s environmental metrics, produced excel sheets that any I.T. geek would be proud of and started working on an Environmental Conference, and this is me just getting started.

Last weekend I was one of five graduates to go to Birmingham and promote the scheme, and what a weekend it was.

If ever there was going to be a stand that stood out it would be ours, an inflatable silver igloo! Sounds strange, I know, but having attended many careers fairs myself, strange isn’t always a bad thing.

There were a few interesting characters at the event – perhaps not enough environmental scientists in my view, but my favourite has to be the individual who asked: “So… do you make bombs then?”

Despite that minor hiccup there was a lot of genuine interest in the scheme, and it looks like this year’s intake will be just as good, I can’t say they’ll be better but, then again, I am biased.

What I would like to see is another West Cumbrian on the scheme; let’s make sure there is at least one of us every year.

Now what do I have to look forward to? The Footprints Corporate Social Responsibility scheme is kicking off soon so I’ll start doing my bit to help improve West Cumbria, there are the challenges of my day-to-day work and hopefully some fun and a lot of laughs along the way. I’ll keep you posted…!