Graphic design, health care, counseling — these were some of the other career choices that confronted Sam Young when he went off to college. It was an exciting realm of possibilities. And confusing all at the same time.
Wisely, he decided not to decide right away. He took classes in all the things that interested him for about two years. Among them, a class called plants and people — an easy A, he admits.
“That was like a general class about how people interact with plants,” he recalls. “We did some gardening and stuff like that. It was my freshman year, and I really enjoyed it. I just kind of fell into it.”
Young is one of the estimated 35,400 new graduates with a degree related to agriculture — about 22,500 too few for the number of jobs available. The Wisconsin native is interning at the Williston Research Extension Center for what he says has been a great summer of learning.
At WREC, he works a lot in the horticulture gardens, but he’s there to help with whatever he’s asked to do. One day that might be weighing chives from the garden, another it might be harvesting barley from the dryland test plots.
Thursday, on the other, was a complete change of scenery. He went with soil scientist Jim Staricka to Nesson Valley, WREC’s irrigated research farm. Staricka talked to him a little bit about soil science as they removed equipment that detects the water content of soil from a project researching the effects of tillage on soil.
The equipment bounces a beam of neutrons against the soil. If there is a lot of water in the soil, more of the neutron beam is able to bounce back, or echo, and Staricka will get a more intense reading in his digital counter.
Young asked several questions about the process, learning a little science beyond what he’s learned in classes. It’s been an entire summer of learning new things with great people, Young said. Best of all is how the summer has helped solidify in his mind that he’s been on the right track with his degree program, environmental science plant science innovations. He’ll go back to Wisconsin for his senior year with confidence that can only help him tackle some of his toughest courses yet — organic chemistry for one. And GIS, plant physiology and taxonomy for a few others.
“I really like my degree because it is very wide open,” he says. “You can work with animals, too if you want. You could be a farmer. You could do genetics. You could start your own business. There are thousands of things you could do. You’re not set in one thing.”
Young himself didn’t grow up on a farm. His family lived in a suburb. Farms weren’t too far away, mostly dairy farms, but it wasn’t something he ever really thought about as a career option.
“I don’t think most schools really emphasize it, and if they do it’s all through a text book,” he says. “They have more emphasis on computers and building stuff. They don’t show ag in a fun or interesting way, so people don’t think of it.”
Young believes he’ll probably want to start his own business, though he hasn’t yet settled on what kind. He feels that more people should give an agriculture career a shot and believes they’d be pleasantly surprised.
“Being around nature, getting to see how it all works,” he says, “you just get to see these things happen to the world, and it’s always changing. You never know what you might find. Plants are really interesting.
They offer so much to people and there is so much potential with them all. They provide health, food and life.”
