Welcome Back! Junior Year and Summer Recap

Hello everyone! I sure hope that you all had a great summer. School is back in full swing (which is crazy to think!) and campus is really bustling! In that case, I do hope that the first week back was a good one also!!

Over the summer, I was a NutriSolutions intern for Ceres Solutions. My main branch was located in a little town called Ade, IN. However, I was in charge of northern Indiana and areas going down to Rockville, IN. So for this position I was taking tissue samples of corn and soybeans for 4 days during the week. Once I took the samples, I dropped them off at the UPS store and they were sent to SureTech Labs in Indianapolis. Since we didn't want the samples to be sitting over the weekend, we had Fridays to do whatever we wanted whether that was riding around with salesmen or agronomists, working at our respective branches, or going on tours with other interns. I got to experience a little bit of all of those. I especially enjoyed working at the Ade branch because I learned a lot about their operations and the people there are just so awesome and helpful. I had a great time with this internship and definitely got to see a lot of Indiana in the whole process! This is definitely an internship that I would suggest to others as I really got to build meaningful connections and see how a co-op is ran. I did receive this internship through the Purdue College of Ag Career Fair at the beginning of October. Even if this particular internship doesn't seem to be what you are looking for, the career fair brings in so many companies with great opportunities as well!

I am a junior this year in Agronomy: Crop and Soil Management and am super excited to be back! I am really enjoying my classes so far, especially BTNY 304 which is Introductory Weed Science with Dr. Young. However, I do think that all of my classes are pretty exciting which should (hopefully!) make for a good semester. I am still involved in Agronomy Club, Agronomy Ambassadors, Collegiate Farm Bureau, and the Honors College. Callouts will be starting shortly so be on the lookout for those as well! For more exciting news, I will be studying abroad in Haiti for 10 days over winter break as a service learning trip. I am taking a semester-long course that is helping us prepare for the trip and I am really enjoying it so far! I am super exited for the trip because I know it will be an eye-opener but it will be a great experience. In addition, I will be traveling to Washington D.C. for the USDA Crop Lock-In through the Collegiate Farm Bureau. This will be a great chance to network, experience the "lock-up" process, and learn how crop production estimates are collected and reported by the USDA. This is another great experience that I am definitely looking forward to!

All in all, I really hope that everyone has been acclimating well to being back at school. It may seem a little busy now but it should calm down soon! Be sure to check out new or different clubs and don't be afraid to get involved! There are so many awesome clubs and organizations around Purdue and you should be able to find one (or several) that spark your interest. I hope that everyone has a great beginning of their semester and remember, please reach out if you have any questions!

Boiler Up!
-Kelley Roberts (rober377@purdue.edu)