ISU Agriculture Question

[AgronAlum]

As a town kid who is now an agronomist, my advice would be to start out in ag business but most importantly spend your summers

A) Interning for a company related to what you are considering doing

B) If you can't get an internship, try to get work at a local coop and learn how things work that way


Honestly, you might even want to work a summer at a coop before any internship no matter what.

That would allow you to kind of get into that world of farming and what goes into it, along with invaluable experience that comes along with everything that cooperatives do.

PM me if you have any other questions.

I'm going to ditto everything in this post. Internships helped a ton while in school. Try to vary your internships as well.

I went from two years of business into Agronomy my junior year and I would suggest doing it the other way around or at least keep it in the back of your mind and take some science classes while you're starting out. I transferred into ISU with every single elective credit I needed and spent my last 2.5 years taking nothing but required Agronomy classes to finish up. It made my last years a little less "fun" than they could have been.

I'm also going to be completely honest with you but don't let it keep you out. You are going to need to seperate yourself from the rest of the students if you intend on getting a decent job out of school in the Ag business. Ag companies just aren't hiring like they were even a couple years ago and I don't see that changing by the time you would be out. Most of the larger companies are laying off or on hiring freezes right now until the ag market rebounds and the larger companies are going to be where there are the majority of the finance type careers are in the ag world.

 

[DeereClone]

You won't have any trouble in an Ag major not being from a farm. Some of the basic things that farm kids know you will pick up on early in class and it won't be an issue. The Ag Business program is really good, but I am not sure what the downturn in the Ag Economy has done to the job market. If you are in the top half of candidates you still shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. Get involved with a few clubs and get some good work experience so you can beef up the resume.

Good luck.

 

[CtownCyclone]

if you take that stats and bio interest and put it toward something like genetics (especially if you go on for a master's or phD), you would be a hot commodity in the animal science world. Probably agronomy as well.


Just something to think about if you have interest in that field.

You could be a statistical geneticist. My wife is one of those. Payback period on that is a while, though...

 

[BCClone]

Best advice I have, go to isu immediately, don't go the juco route. Can't list all the ways this helped me. I started agronomy and turned ag bus. My ag bus friends got agronomy jobs but my agronomy friends didn't get ag bus jobs.

 

[cowgirl836]

You could be a statistical geneticist. My wife is one of those. Payback period on that is a while, though...

yes. They are hot in my field right now. Big data analytics, statistical analysis, bioinformatics - all great places to be studying right now.

Not many U.S. kids doing so, though.

 

[kingcy]

Yes you can. I would recommend taking summer internships/jobs with ag companies every year you are in college. There are also school time jobs you can take with ag retail or seed companies that would help you with learning the business and getting your foot in the door. With any job the best way to prove yourself is work hard and be willing to learn.

 

[CtownCyclone]

yes. They are hot in my field right now. Big data analytics, statistical analysis, bioinformatics - all great places to be studying right now.

Not many U.S. kids doing so, though.

She's Canadian, so that fits.

 

[cowgirl836]

She's Canadian, so that fits.

yeah if you are an English as 1st language kid with knowledge of the American production ag system going into these fields...........you can write your ticket. Have a friend who didn't get into vet school so she went grad school genetics route instead. I'm like counting the days til she's done (going for a PhD now) so I can hopefully convince her to come work for us. She's realized she lucked out not going to vet school. Poor paying career that starts you off so far in debt.