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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.