Kansas State University

search

Agricultural Communication & Journalism Internships

Tag: agriculture

Mid Kansas Cooperative – Shaylee Arpin

Posted on by Courtney Boman

Most kids growing up in a large town or city have little access to knowledge about agriculture, farming or even something as simple as where their food comes from. My story would have been the same if my parents had not put my siblings and me into the Central Kansas District 4-H program. For twelve years, I dove head first into learning and soaking up as much information as I could. Because of my experiences with the 4-H program, I chose to major in agricultural communications and journalism with a minor in animal science and industry at Kansas State University.

Through the past 10 months, I have interned with Mid Kansas Cooperative (MKC). I joined MKC in January as part of the Collegiate Career Development Program. A program designed to turn interns into professionals and hopefully retain interns for full-time positions with partners of the program including MKC, Dow, WinField, CoBank and Land O’Lakes. Normal internships run from late May to early August.

To share my experiences, I built a list of the most valuable lessons I learned and my experiences learning them.

  1. Writing is THE most important skill you will learn.

Throughout my ACJ and journalism classes, I had professors tell me that even if I was not as interested in writing as I was in photography or graphic design, I would still have to know how to write. Boy, were they more right than I knew. For MKC, I wrote feature articles that were placed into the employee newsletter and online.

  1. Fake it until you make it or just ask.

I learned as I went further into my internship that if I did not know how to do something, I could sit and try to figure it out or I could just as easily ask! My boss was always willing to show me how to do something. One of my main responsibilities was to produce the employee newsletter. When I started I had trouble working with the formatting of the newsletter. My boss was more than willing to teach me how to do something or what I could do to change an element to make it better.

  1. You probably don’t know exactly what you’re good at.

Throughout an internship, you will get lots of experience in various areas. I found through my internship that I have a passion for graphic design. Before, I focused on working on my photography skills. Now, I have a passion for both and can work on both skills!

  1. You’re going to grow a lot.

My internship at MKC has made me grow both professionally but also personally. I think my biggest area of growth throughout the internship has been learning how to work in a professional setting and how to share my opinions or preferences in writing, photography, or design. MKC has helped me build my professional portfolio and taught me professional skills such as email writing and best interview practices.

My favorite part of interning with MKC has been growing my professional network. Over the summer, interns visited MKC locations, as well as the KDA and Wheat Innovation Center. Although most days were great, I found that there are times when there is a lot of work to be done but also times when there may only be one or two projects.

These experiences described above are going to carry over into my professional career because I gained both writing and graphic design skills as well as professional knowledge. I would recommend this internship to a person invested in advocating for the agriculture industry through writing and social media. To learn about and apply for an internship, students need to contact MKC at career fairs or the MKC Coordinator of Talent and Industry Partnerships, Hilary Worcester.

Orca Communications Intern – Ashley Tercero

Posted on by Courtney Boman

7 Things I Learned Being an Intern

1. You won’t get along with everyone

I worked with a lot of different personalities and most of my conversations were either over the phone or over email. I learned rather quickly that everyone had different email etiquette and phone etiquette. I am use to emailing in a way that nothing can be misconstrued so when I would receive certain emails my mind would automatically think someone was mad at me or that I had done something wrong and I then had to take a step back and re-read the message and realize it wasn’t what I first thought. But with that some people did not like the way that I sent emails or that I communicated because it was very different from one another. And while I wanted to plant my feet in the mud and say this is who I am and how I communicate that wasn’t the right thing to do and I had to remember that it wasn’t personal but personality of professional. I then knew to transform the way I would talk to certain people to allow them to know that I was trying my hardest.

2. The age gap is real

Orca had not taken on an intern in a long time. When they began to transition to all online employees they stopped using the office thus, didn’t feel the need for interns. I had thought that I would talk to people that were at least somewhat close to my age but boy was I wrong. Almost everyone in the company was close to twice my age if not older. I learned a lot about how to communicate electronically with all my co-workers as they were not the texting kind so many emails were sent throughout my experience. Phone calls were also made multiple times a week, where I am more use to texting and some emailing, phone calls were the way that they preferred to do business. With the age gap was a social media gap as well and the learning curve there was hard. They have integrated some social media but have not found how truly important it is in this day and age.

3. Not everyone is tech savvy

Being a millennial I have had the opportunity to watch technology change and also had it in my hands for most of my life. I am always excited to try and work with the newest gadgets that are out and try to have the newest ones whenever I have the opportunity. When it came to downloading some of the software that everyone was using it was hard, they all had Dells that were pretty old. So some of the software my updated computer wouldn’t work with and then wouldn’t work with what they were doing. Many times the tech person for the company also struggled to do things that I could do within a few minutes. They are also very old school in that the tech person did all the design work as he was the only one that knew how to work certain programs. This is somewhere I would have loved to have had the opportunity to show off some of my skills but never got the chance to because “communication” is not synonymous with technology in the minds of older generations.

4. Flexibility is key

Being willing to do whatever is thrown at you is key. Most of my internship I did the same things on a daily basis, but when I would get a call that they needed me to do something else I always was up for the challenge and do the best I could with it. The different random projects I would get thrown at me were the ones when I really got to show off my skills and put my own twist on it. I was willing to work hours that were conducive to different time zones, sometimes that meant waking up on east coast time when I was on the west coast and then having work done on pacific time.

5. Don’t be afraid to speak up

During the beginning of my internship I was doing a lot of random work. There wasn’t a lot of organization to it and for a while I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing and wasn’t really learning anything. It took a lot of courage but I spoke to my manager and let her know that I wasn’t happy in the spot they had me and she immediately changed what I was doing and told me over and over again thank you for speaking up so that we could put you somewhere where I was useful as well as learning as much as I possibly can. I was so scared that I was going to rock the boat if I said anything and it ended up being the best thing I could have done for my internship. Of course do it with tact and make sure to not complain all the time but, if you aren’t happy then talk to you intern manager, they are there to help you learn and want to see you succeed.

6. I can bring agriculture into a non-agriculture company

My first project with orca was to try and find agriculture companies that they could work with and research what kind of PR was popular among agriculture companies. I began to search for young companies that had not had any exposure yet and fund so many wonderful companies. Some of my co-workers were shocked at just how many companies were out there and the different products they carried or the different business sectors they were in. Unfortunately, the account manager left the company but, I was able to help secure a few companies that are with them now and bring agriculture to Orca.

7. Sometime you have to do the work no one else wants to do

An important part of being an intern is understanding that not everything you do is going to be fun or what you want to do. What helped me the most when doing things that weren’t that exciting to me is remembering that you’re helping someone and you are proving to others that you are capable of doing any work they throw at you. If you are willing to do the grunt work the tasks you will be given will get better and better until you get to be working on things you really enjoy.

A Summer at Look East – Topanga McBride

Posted on by Courtney Boman

This summer, I had the privilege of interning at Look East, a public relations firm right outside of Kansas City. Unlike other PR firms, Look East’s clients are agribusinesses and agricultural organizations. One of their biggest clients is The Center for Food Integrity. From the end of May to the beginning of August, I spent every day doing something new.

My summer was a success because of my mentors and advisors at Look East. I started off with a list of goals to accomplish and by the end of the summer, I had achieved them all. I gained experience in multiple outlets of media, published my writing and even tried ghost writing, and gained a completely new appreciation for analytics and strategy. I tracked The Center for Food Integrity in the media all summer long through Cision. While design was not my strong skill, I was able to work on it and create some great infographics. My co-intern and I even ran an agriculture advocacy training program for other college students.

My biggest area of growth was not necessarily a skill but in my ability to hold myself up in a professional setting. Prior to this internship, I had little experience in a professional setting. By spending my summer at Look East with great role models, I was able to get great advice for my professional life.

My internship, like all, had its ups and downs. My proudest moment was writing an op-ed that was published in The Huffington Post. It took many edits to get it there, but it took that kind of work to get it published. I was trusted to represent The Center for Food Integrity, regardless of my position. I loved the internship, and I only wish that there wasn’t as much downtime. My co-intern and I got through some work faster than anticipated and found ourselves searching for more work to do.

My experience at Look East has actually helped me get a media relations internship at Monsanto. Outside of my immediate plans, this experience has helped me realize what sort of path I want to take in agricultural communications. I enjoyed The Center for Food Integrity work the most because I felt more connected to the client. Going forward, I think I am best suited for more of a corporate communications role where I work for the organization I am representing.

I was lucky enough to find this experience through an email from Dr. Kris Boone. If you are looking for an opportunity to gain very diverse experiences and have plenty of support from a great staff, Look East would be a great fit for you, especially if you enjoy educating the general public about agriculture.

Look East is looking for more interns this summer. If you’re interested, you can apply at: http://lookeast.com/position/2017-public-relations-internship/.