Wow! It’s hard to believe that my internship is ending. My last week coincided with the Tioga County Fair, which was a blast. I helped out on two days and was able to witness the hard work of many of my CCE Tioga colleagues come to fruition at this wonderful community event. I also appreciated the opportunity to see many of the people I worked with this summer in person and celebrate the end of a great summer.
During my last week I also brought three factsheets and a decision matrix from the idea stage to the rough draft stage. I received several people’s input on the fact sheets and decision matrix and got them to a good point to be continued beyond my internship. Lastly, I summarized findings from my interviews and recommendations for policy, education initiatives, and future actions for CCE Tioga in a written report.
Looking back on the summer as a whole, I expanded my knowledge of different types of agriculture and was challenged to think about the complexities of renewable energy production. From a social science perspective, I learned about many different perspectives people have on one topic, land use for farming and energy. I continued to learn about agriculture, building on the knowledge from various CALS classes I have taken. I learned about how farms remain sustainable from an environmental, economic, and social perspective, a trio of characteristics we were trained to look for on farm visits in PLSCS 1900: Sustainable Agriculture: Food, Farming, and the Future based on the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education definition of sustainable agriculture. One of my favorite parts of this job was visiting the farms and hearing what made each farm unique. I have developed an interest in agritourism from this experience, and might like to work to connect people with their local food systems after I graduate in May.
I would recommend this program to other students – each individual internship is a different experience, and for me this was a very informative summer. Not only did I absorb knowledge from my interviews, meetings, and conversations with coworkers, but I gained experience organizing, scheduling, and managing my own project from start to finish (with input from my supervisors). I was lucky to work with a great CCE team in the midst of a move from their rented office space to a horse farm and see what a broad impact they have on the community, from family services to nutrition to agriculture. I appreciated their kindness and support in welcoming me into the group, and I learned a lot from observing their work. Thank you to T Hanson and Barb Neal for supervising me at CCE Tioga, Mary Kate MacKenzie for advising, David Kay for sharing his wealthy of solar knowledge, and the Ag-Solar Working Group for helping support me in this program.