Dec 12, 20203 min read

Let's Catch Up

Hello All,

It has been a hot moment since I have taken the time to sit down and write. Travel Lane Blog is an outlet that I am beyond thankful for, and I am grateful that I have a place to share my experiences in life. My goal at the beginning of 2020 for Travel Lane Blog was to post weekly or bi-weekly, and obviously, after my study abroad experience, I didn’t meet this goal. Life got busy, stressful, and sometimes overwhelming.

During the Summer of 2020, I crop scouted for AgVantage FS in Miles, Iowa, and loved it. When starting college and looking for internships, nearly every agricultural or agronomy major said to crop scout, and I was always told, “It will teach you so much, but you will hate it. You will hate every bit of your summer, but you will learn more than any semester at college.” I must say that half of this is very true, but the other half not so much. During my summer of crop scouting, I fell in love with how much I learned. This summer pushed me so hard, tested my work ethic, brain, and ability to persevere through hard times.

(A fun slug on a corn leaf; A selfie of me covered in pollen; Corn that is deficient in sulfur)

Getting up and out the door by 5 or 6 am every morning was hard; getting prepared to walk 20,000+ steps a day was a lot; my first couple of weeks were awful. But then I got the hang of it and learned to love it. My body felt healthy, and all of the information I was learning was amazing. Before starting crop scouting, I had one agronomy course and little experience with agriculture’s agronomy side. During crop scouting, I learned so much about the development of corn and soybeans, along with different pressures that can impact yields and the field’s production—getting hands-on with corn that was way taller than me, to soybeans that were just emerging from the soil. I learned how to do additional research to learn instead of leaning on a book or person for research and information. Of course, during my time, I did rely on some coworkers to help me learn more about what I was seeing in the fields and how farmers could reverse any damage occurring.

During working full-time for AgVantage FS, I also started working at Theisen’s in Maquoketa, IA, as a cashier part-time, mostly on the weekends. Following the summer, I transferred to the Theisen’s in Ames, IA. I worked part-time during the school year, and now, on Winter Break, I am working full-time. Every day is interesting, and working in retail gives me a whole new appreciation anytime I walk into a store. I enjoy working at Theisen’s as my co-workers, and the environment is delightful, and I am learning to work on my soft skills.

In the Fall 2020 semester at Iowa State University, I took 15 credits revolving around agriculture education and environmental studies. This semester, I took a class regarding teaching those with exceptional needs in secondary education, planning for agriculture education programs, teaching agriculture education methods, methods for teaching agriculture mechanics, and environmental planning. This semester was challenging with the in-person and online format of my classes. Some classes, I went to every other class period, some I went every day in person, some every other week, another class only on specific days, and one class all online. The constant change in schedule was very overwhelming for me initially, and I really relied on my work schedule to be consistent and help me stay sane.

(In my Methods of Teaching Agriculture Mechanics, we finished building a shed and I learned how to mig and stick weld.)

This semester proved to be tough, I struggled mentally and academically. I always felt as if I was drowning in homework and couldn’t stay caught up. Even though it was tough, I passed all my classes and finished the semester with a GPA of 3.93 and cumulatively 3.74. I am proud of my hard work and determination to complete this semester and not quit like I wanted to many times. During this semester, I met multiple times with my therapist and my regular doctor. I did lots of self-care and learned about myself. I was involved with a small group at the Wesley Center in Ames, where I dove deeper into the Enneagram and spirituality. This small group allowed for a lot of self-development, and I would highly recommend everyone learns about the Enneagram and learn how to use the knowledge not to put yourself in a box but to help you get outside of the box.