I think this program is incredibly
unique because students can come in
interested in the food and system and
the sustainable ag system, and there's so
many places to spin out the interest. It
can come out in a food justice area,
which a lot of them, they're very
interested in; it can spin out into a
culinary area; it can come out into an
agricultural teaching aspect; it can come
out to a small farm and business aspect,
environmental aspect... there's so many
ways that that, coming into the core, I
just feel like they can spin out,
and they come out with incredible skills
not just the skills of talking and
interviewing and participating in their
education but also kind of the thinking
skills that I think are really critical
today and in the out there in the world-
just working through and thinking
through and making
value-added products and actually doing
the enterprise projection, actually, then
trying to market it. I mean that's
something a many of us don't get until
we hit the job, you know, or we try and go
out into our own little business, and so
those students are coming out just with
that knowledge behind them and with that
confidence and understanding of how to
use that going forward in their
careers. It's incredibly valuable, and not
only that, they find out the areas 'I'm
passionate...  I want to be a farmer' and
then they work here for summer and go
'Yeah, I'm passionate about you just do
not want to do that', you know and how far
ahead are you when you do that? I mean,
you could be working in a job for two
years before you decide, 'Wow, this isn't
really what I was looking for', and having
the chance to have that experience here
is pretty valuable. It's amazing how
so many of the students that I see go
out and they get jobs right off. I mean,
every student that I've been with since
I've been here has graduated and
gone on and looking for jobs in this
area have found jobs and are doing great
work.
The students that are most successful here
are the students that are really
interested in bringing the hands-on
learning into the classroom and vice
versa or the classroom to the hands-on experience. The students that go out to other farms
and then come back questioning, and
asking as they're working with me are
incredibly successful because they're
putting what they're thinking
and meeting they're putting it into
their hands and they're putting it into
kind of this context for themselves and
then they take that from there and I see
many students thinking, 'Yeah, I want to be
a homesteader or a small farmer' and then
leaving with that enjoyment of doing
that but also the reality of 'Well,
I've seen so many big farms and so and
that's not what I want to do but I want
to consult with those big farms' and
really being able to take that work and
kind of bring it into two perspective to
what they feel they're capable of doing
in their life
