When I asked my new colleagues what exactly won me the job at Minerva, they were absolutely unanimous in their response. It wasn’t my hard-earned degree, my carefully-written CV, or even my dazzling people skills (although these all helped)… It was the fact that I offered to bake them cookies.

Baked goods and potential bribery aside, from the moment I knew I’d got the job I was excited to employ the skills I had gained as an English graduate. But I was also nervous about entering The World of Work. Since my previous summer jobs only involved waitressing, cleaning and/or folding A4 pieces of paper – yes, really – the concept of working full-time in an office felt way too grown-up and intimidating.

Fortunately, I needn’t have worried. The first question I was asked on arrival was how strong I liked my tea, sparking a debate on whether hot milky water really counts. (Note – it definitely doesn’t!)

I wasn’t sure what I expected, but my excitement really hasn’t abated yet. Maybe it’s the novelty of my shiny new notebook, or all the post-it notes I get to scribble – the biscuit tin immediately to my right certainly helps.  But the projects genuinely interest me and as a lot of my tasks involve research, the more I discover, the more interesting I find it.

The team all have their own roles and seem to know exactly what they’re doing, but thankfully the whole situation is inspiring rather than intimidating… The fact that the latest blog post was titled “There Are No Stupid Questions” was also reassuring when I found myself asking what Minerva does, exactly. (The answer is: a lot of things.)

There’s a wonderful balance that means everyone takes the work seriously, but not themselves – speaking of which, it turns out the tea debate was only the beginning of the work ethic here. We also critique the baked goods brought in from home like it’s our own episode of the Great British Bake Off. (The words “nice even bake” and “beautifully moist” have never been said with such seriousness.) Thankfully my first batch of cherry and almond cookies passed muster, despite stiff competition from an excellent lemon drizzle cake, and the approval of my co-workers was won.

So far in my career here, as well as carrying out research, I’ve contributed to databases, sent out press releases, written reports, sent emails, designed flyers…and been sent out to pick up some proof copies of business cards, resulting in my shamefacedly ringing the office to admit I was lost en route. But nobody’s perfect, right?  More importantly, I’ve loved it. Hopefully my innocent (or ignorant) enthusiasm makes up for minor details like getting lost on the same street as the office!

I can’t say it hasn’t been a bit of a learning curve – one client in particular was so difficult to get my head around, I’m still not entirely sure who they are, what they do or how we’re helping. (Whatever it is, I’m sure the team is doing it brilliantly and I’ll get to grips with it eventually – after all, I’ve only been here a few weeks.) But I’ve managed to absorb enough to have an intelligent-sounding to-do list on my desk, and even a vague idea of how I’m going to manage it all. After all, I have my own official Minerva diary, my own official Minerva flash drive, and a constant supply of tea – it can’t go too wrong. Or if it does, maybe I could bake something else as a distraction…anyone fancy a cupcake?