Opportunities at Purdue

Hello Everyone!

I am in the home stretch of Senior year! This is a weird but bittersweet feeling. For my last semester I am only taking 12 credit hours. I have never takin anything less than 18! I wanted to really enjoy my last semester at Purdue. I wanted to make sure that I could focus on my 12 credit hours and be successful but also be able to attend basketball games and take as many opportunities that I can.

One new thing that came my way was a new job! The last three semester I was a TA for AGEC 331. This is a Ready, Set, Sell class. All semester you focus on a product and at the end of the semester we bring in industry professionals and you have to perform a sales pitch for them. I highly recommend this class! When I took it as a Freshman I gained a lot of skills that really helped prepare me for my summer internship. But the new opportunity that came my way was to work with one of my favorite professors, Dr. Johnson. I have been grinding forage tissue samples at ACRE. I absolutely love working in this lab and helping with research! I have huge trash bags that contain smaller brown paper bag in it. Within the brown paper bags are the forage tissue samples that were harvested last summer/fall. I empty the trash bags into a really big oven to help dry out the samples a little more. I then have to sort the bags with the corresponding containers after it dries a little more. I then take the samples into the grinding room. From there I put the clumps of grass into the top of the grinder and let it feed through the grinder. The end product comes out into a Ball jar that is attached at the bottom of the machine. After it is finely ground I have to mix the sample up really good and then I put it into a small cup that has information on it.

One piece of advice for a student that is entering college is to get to know your professors very well. They will be connections that will help you out for the rest of your career. They also could potentially help you gain experience that is also important when looking for  internships.

If you have any questions feel free to get ahold of me!

Madison Boston

boston0@purdue.edu