Doing a pasture assessment with a pasture stick at a UME pasture walk
From a very young age, I have always loved learning and have strived to continue my education outside of traditional learning environments. My time spent working with Maryland Extension has been no exception! Over the summer so far, I have learned new skills and honed ones I already possess. In addition, I have identified areas where I still have ample room for improvement.
This internship with Extension is really my first professional work experience. Aside from my on-campus job at my college’s admissions office, which is more like summer camp than an actual 9-5, I have never worked out of an office or in an environment with coworkers who have jobs that are very different from my own. Thus, navigating the office environment has taken a little getting used to. Everyone at WMREC has been great to work with, however, making this part of the job a breeze! Additionally, I have learned a lot of hands-on field skills while working with my mentors; all are skills that I hope will prove useful should I pursue a career in Extension or agriculture more generally. These include doing pasture assessments with a pasture stick, weighing calves and taking body measurements like heart-girth and height, body condition scoring on adult cattle, and the best way to herd cows from pasture to pasture. A lot of this education has come from my mentors Sarah, Jeff, and Amanda, but I have also had the opportunity to participate in many great Extension programs including a Fundamentals of Beef Cattle Production Course at WMREC, and an Equine Grazing School pasture walk in Clarksville. I’ve also learned how things work behind the scenes, and about the logistics and planning that make these programs possible. Thus, I am getting the best of both worlds, some of the professional agricultural education that Extension provides to the public and also seeing how Extension Agents and Specialists plan and prepare for public programs.
Beyond the hard and soft skills I’ve developed at WMREC, I have also learned a lot about the type of work environment I do best in, and found some aspects of my work process that I know I can do better. For instance, I definitely work best in an office as conflicting responsibilities and activities at home often get the way of a full eight hours of work. Also, I now know that I need to focus on one task at a time; trying to split energy between two different projects at a time is difficult to impossible. Often, both projects go uncompleted until I set aside time to concentrate on one specifically. However, my mentors have been beyond encouraging, and are always checking up on me to ensure I have the resources I need to succeed.
To conclude, I have learned many different things and in many different ways through this internship. It is this continuous learning that has made my time with Extension so productive and enjoyable. In conversations with my mentors and with other Extension personnel, it seems like this theme of continued learning is a core part of the Extension mission, which is why I believe a career at Maryland Extension, or with another state’s extension program, would be an excellent fit for me somewhere down the road.
Data collected during our calf project, another skill I have honed!
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