11/29/2017 0 Comments internship spotlight: New fashion porkBy: Ellyn Swanson, U of M Senior
As I sat down and looked over the list of projects I was to complete at the beginning of my internship, I quickly became overwhelmed and thought, “How in the world will I ever get this all done?” But, as I reflect on my experience as an intern for New Fashion Pork (NFP), I do not know why I was ever worried in the first place. As the Communications Project Intern, I was based out of the NFP headquarters in Jackson, Minnesota. I primarily worked with the Human Resources Department and many members of the Production Staff. My work focused on editing, revising, and reformatting projects that many NFP employees use on a daily basis. I first started by updating company-wide job descriptions and the NFP Employee Handbook, and then moved on to designing recruiting materials and constructing an Employee Satisfaction survey. On the Production side, I edited, reformatted, and redesigned the NFP Growing Pig, NFP Sow Farm, OFP Growing Pig, and OFP Sow Farm manuals, in addition to the Employee Production Reference and Service Production Reference. I became best friends with Microsoft Word, but found my work to be very fulfilling and enjoyable as I realized how many NFP employees truly used the projects I updated. In addition to working in the NFP office, I also got to spend time out in the field with members of the Production Staff. I spent one day with a Weaned Pig Specialist, receiving two loads of weaned pigs, in addition to spending a day at the NFP Minnesota Sow Farm (Freking Sow Farm). I also had the opportunity to weigh a turn of NFP’s research pigs, and spend a day with the NFP Trainer as he trained in new Grow to Finish employees. NFP also sent me to several leadership conferences: the Minnesota Pork Social Media and Public Relations Training, and the Young Leaders in Agriculture Conference. With these conferences, I grew both as a professional within the agriculture industry, and also as an individual. While I did not know much about the swine industry prior to my internship with New Fashion Pork, I could not be more grateful for the opportunities they presented me with that helped me diversify my knowledge of the agricultural industry. Because of their management style, I strongly developed my time management, communication, trustworthiness, and independence skills, in addition to many more, which I feel has tremendously prepared me for a career after graduation. NFP is a very family-oriented company, and throughout my whole internship experience, the work that every employee does, is done for the betterment of the company as a whole, and that is what makes me so proud to be a part of the agricultural industry.
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11/20/2017 0 Comments internship spotlight: Minnesota GrownWritten by: Kristin Liepold, U of M Student
This past spring, summer and school year, I had the opportunity to intern with Minnesota Grown, a program through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. This partnership has been promoting local foods from Minnesota farmers for over thirty years. Minnesota Grown does advertising, promotional items, social media and monthly consumer e-newsletters, offers cost-share programs, and attends and sponsors conferences throughout the year. In addition, Minnesota Grown is working on eight consumer surveys throughout the next two years. Perhaps the biggest project the organization produces is the Minnesota Grown Directory. The 2017 edition boasted 1,031 producers from across the state. We printed 155,000 copies and expect to go through a majority. Minnesota Grown also has an online directory where each member has a page with photos, contact information, description, and a map. Each member generally gets a minimum of 200 views per year. The Minnesota Grown website as a whole receives 300,000 unique visitors annually. Throughout my internship, I have gained writing, social media and website design skills. I’ve assisted with the two e-newsletters Minnesota Grown distributes each month (one of them is consumer-focused, and the other is member-focused). I’ve also been able to write press releases, association articles, and small news pieces for the website. Social media is something that I love, and I hope to utilize my skills in my career. Each week, I dug into Facebook Insights and looked at Boosted Post analytics, demographics, time of day, post structure, and geographics – and we created an action plan for Minnesota Grown based on these results. In addition, web design is something that I did not know I was interested in until I learned how to operate the website. My coworker Danielle is an expert in this, and she has begun to teach me about plug-ins, coding, and features. Check out minnesotagrown.com! My biggest project during the internship involved the Minnesota State Fair. I organized the booth, gathered the volunteers, bought the produce, and corresponded with volunteers, staff, and our mail room to ensure everything went smoothly. I also had the responsibility to travel to several farms to learn about them, their operation, their history, and how we can continue to help them. Through these visits, I learned so much about vegetable production, hops, meat, cheesemaking, wine, and so much more. I would not trade this internship for anything. I have truly learned about Minnesota agriculture, professionalism, and the program as a whole! 11/15/2017 0 Comments internship spotlight: Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health (UMASH) CenterWritten by: Alexis Murillo, U of M Third Year Student
At the beginning of January, I had the opportunity to begin a new experience as a Communications Specialist Intern for the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health (UMASH) Center. Within this internship position, I was responsible for curating content for social media posts, creating and maintaining an editorial calendar, reviewing and summarizing both daily and monthly social media analytics, participating in weekly communication team meetings, and working collaboratively with the outreach and communications team. Although there were other duties I completed during my internship, these tasks seemed to be the most significant to my growth, learning, and position overall. Although I had previous experience curating content for other organization’s social media platforms, UMASH was different. I taught myself how to properly engage UMASH stakeholders and the general public through various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Additionally, I had to determine the best way to expand the online reach and engagement of UMASH through different trial and error methods. As I reflect upon my experience with UMASH, there were three areas in which I feel as though I have significantly grown: collaboration, communication, and personal development. Essentially, this internship experience allowed me to collaborate with others across the United States, learn how to better communicate with others based on their communication styles, and understand more about what I want for a future career. Furthermore, I was able to take what was taught inside the classroom in courses such as AFEE 1001 and 2421 and apply the learned information to my internship, which was incredibly rewarding. As a result, being a Communications Specialist Intern for UMASH allowed me to enhance my skill set and well as expand it by learning new “tricks of the trade.” Much of the internship was trial and error, but having the support of the UMASH team made it an easier process. Aside from being able to use my creativity for a new social media post each day, one of the major highlights of my internship experience was being able to network with others at Ag Awareness Day on Northrop Plaza. This experience allowed me speak to many students on the University of Minnesota East Bank campus who were not familiar with UMASH and agriculture in general. During Ag Awareness Day, I explained the mission of UMASH and asked people to fill out a survey to see how much they knew about agricultural health and safety. It was interesting to see how much knowledge everyone had in regards to the survey topic and how intrigued they were with our organization. Another highlight of my internship with UMASH was being able to create content for two major social media campaigns, “Beat the Heat” and “Agritourism.” I took pride in seeing the posts come to life when people would share them on their own social media pages because I knew I played a role in creating the content. For me, those were the most rewarding experiences during my internship with UMASH. Written by: Savannah Williams, U of M Student
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to work with UW Discovery Farms, doing outreach and research. Discovery Farms is an organization that works with farmers throughout Wisconsin on the relationship between agriculture and water quality. Although this was my second summer with Discovery Farms, I had the chance to further my experience and try new things. During the course of my internship, I served as the project coordinator for our stream and lake sampling. I made the schedule of when we were going to take samples, and then I put the data into our system. I also focused on designing outreach materials for social media, events, flyers and emails, and created videos of various staff, places and projects. Working with Discovery Farms, I had a lot of great experiences and opportunities. I was able try new things, even if I was not comfortable with the tasks at first. For example, I attended Farm Tech Days to volunteer in the education tent. I was unfamiliar with my assigned station, but after talking with the person who was in charge I was able to take what I learned from him and share with people who were interested in my station. I don’t think that is something I would have done last summer! I also really enjoyed being a part of the June Water Tours. I was able to help with the planning and outreach, and I also had the opportunity to talk with people from different organizations and learn from them. At the end of my summer, I was able to plan more events – many of which were more challenging to plan, as we weren’t partnered with other organizations. To plan those types of events took a lot of traveling, calling and organization to make sure we were prepared. I liked planning the events because they posed a purpose to others and allowed them to learn about Discovery Farms, soil, and water. I can say that all my summer goals were successfully met, and I have grown as an individual because of this experience! Written by: Emily Dehn, U of M Student
This past summer, I had the opportunity to work as a Social Media Intern for a company called DTN/The Progressive Farmer, or “DTN” for short. DTN is a multi-faceted company — something I learned quickly in my first few days on the job! DTN has four main “silos” in the organization: Agriculture, Weather, Commodities, and Refined Fuels. I spent my internship working in the ag division, where DTN provides services and insights to two groups, producers and agribusinesses. Since I worked on the social media side, my summer was spent focusing on producers. During my three months with DTN, I was able to accomplish a variety of tasks. The main goal of my internship was to deepen my knowledge of the agricultural industry while simultaneously broadening my experience with communications in the professional world. When my internship was in full swing, I was in charge of reading the content published by our newsroom, summarizing articles, finding graphics, creating posts (for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), and scheduling the content to be posted. I also completed several large scale projects including a social media competitive analysis, a business case for Instagram, and a trends calendar. I was also lucky enough to travel for my internship, both to the company office in Omaha and to FarmFest 2017. My experience this past summer exceeded my expectations tenfold. The most beneficial thing I gained this summer through my work at DTN was professional experience. I learned first-hand what it’s like to work in a corporate setting. I presented to company executives, attended meetings, went on business trips, and so much more. I was able to reinforce my belief that I am a skilled communicator, and I learned that one area I can improve on is prioritizing my work from day to day. This summer was stressful at times, but it also was very encouraging. Through my professional experience in the field, I now know that I truly do want to continue to study Agricultural Communication & Marketing. Not to mention, getting paid to do something you love is pretty cool! Looking back, if there’s one piece of advice I’d give to those who haven’t completed an internship yet, it’s the following: APPLY, APPLY, APPLY, and be open to whatever comes your way! Early in my sophomore year at the U, I had my heart set on a particular internship. I advanced through the interview process, but didn’t end up getting the job. I was feeling deflated; however, I received an email from my advisor late in the spring semester about a position with DTN — a position I would end up securing in May. It was a great learning experience for me. Keep your eyes open, your head up, and always be open to try new things! |
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January 2020
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