The Power of an Internship...or Three!

Last week I shared my thoughts on the importance of good interview skills. One of the places those good skills can take you is to a great internship.

As a CAFNR freshman it felt like everyone shoved the importance of internships down my throat....and they were right. Over the past three summers, I have had three very different internships, each with something unique to teach me.

My first summer was spent with Monsanto Company in St. Louis. This was quite a jump for a girl from a town of less than 400. While I did spend a small part of my summer scared to death, the bigger part of my time was spent learning invaluable lessons. My job was to travel to Monsanto test plots all across the county and photograph the effectiveness of different products. My travels took me all the way from Tennessee to Idaho and introduced me to a valuable network of agriculture professionals.

In my second summer of college, I shifted gears and went to work for Brownfield Radio Network in Jefferson City. I was hired as a Promotions intern, but the Promotions Coordinator took a different job a week after I arrived, so I basically took over her role until a new coordinator was hired 5 months later. My work at Brownfield included planning and assisting with promotional events the network put on such as showmanship contests at state fairs and 4-H youth awards. I also updated the web pages about these events and conducted interviews to with participants. Brownfield also provided me the opportunity to contribute to the daily news program by writing and broadcasting some stories of my own. I was offered an extension on my internship and stayed with Brownfield through the fall semester. This experience exposed me to a whole new side of ag journalism and taught me a wide variety of skills that I know I will continue to use throughout my career.

This summer I worked here in Columbia with Cummins Consulting. My primary responsibility was to help coordinate the judging for the American Ag Editors Association annual critique contest. This experience exposed me to many different aspects of farm publications and concluded with a trip to Florida for the awards ceremony where I met many of the leaders in agriculture journalism.

All of my internships have been in very different fields of my degree program, but share the commonality that they prepared me to make a decision of where I want to go with my future in agriculture journalism.

-Taryn Dameron

Senior, Agricultural Journalism

Looking for valuable internships like Taryn's? CAFNR Career Services is here to help. Ask CAFNR students about their experiences at the Internship Panel TONIGHT, October 1st at 5 p.m. in 154 Eckles! Need an alternative? Don't miss the Career Fair on Wednesday, October 8th to find your summer internship!