By Laurie Bedord, Chair, Future Agricultural Communicators Chair
Have you toyed with the idea of hosting an intern but weren’t quite sure if it would be worth the time and effort? Rather than try to convince you that becoming a host for an AAEA intern is a worthwhile endeavor, I’m going to let comments from past interns do the convincing for me.
“Whenever someone asks me how my internship went, my eyes light up and I can’t help but smile because it was amazing,” says Emily Berger, a student at Texas A&M. “This year, I found something I could truly see myself doing for the rest of my life. I still have one last year of school left before I graduate, but now I can approach my studies knowing I’m working toward a career I’m going to love.”
Yet, that was not the case when this young woman first walked through the doors of Farm Journal’s Mexico, Missouri office. A disappointing internship a year earlier would have her questioning her chosen career path and gave her pause as she planned for her AAEA editorial internship.
“I’d had such high hopes for the previous summer’s internship, only to find out it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” she says. “What if the same thing happened this summer? What if I was stuck in a corner and forgotten for three months? Or, even worse, what if I – a random girl from Texas with more animal husbandry and research experience than anything else – wasn’t good enough to do the job? The more my excitement grew, the more I tried to shove it away.”
From day one, the staff at Farm Journal made her realize she had nothing to worry about and brought her into the fold as one of their own.
Michaela Simcoe, a student at South Dakota State University, had a similar experience as the AAEA marketing intern with broadhead in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“The combination of working at a full-service agency with so many clients involved in agriculture and attending the Ag Media Summit confirmed how much I love the industry,” she says. “It makes me excited for my future within it.”
There’s no doubt having an intern is a lot of work. But as you can see, what both Emily and Michaela – and the many interns before them – get out of these experiences is priceless!
It’s your company’s turn to take a front row seat. . . see firsthand as that aspiring ag communicator develops and hones his or her skills thanks to the guidance, expertise, and mentoring your organization provides.
The application deadline to host either the 2018 AAEA editorial or marketing communications intern is Monday, November 6, 2017.
Don’t miss your opportunity to make a difference!