Internship 2020

Hello! My name is Riley Garner, a junior this year in Agronomy with a minor in Farm Management. This summer was different than all others for most Agriculture students participating in internships. Most students either had online internships, or their internships got cancelled. I, however, was blessed with the opportunity to have a normal internship experience, seemingly unaffected by the pandemic.

This summer I was a Wholesale Agronomy and Sales Intern with Helena Agri-Enterprises out of Princeton, IL. I was able to participate in the agronomic activities I enjoy such as scouting, tissue sampling, soil sampling, plot management, and trial managemnt. In addition, I got to experience something completely new to me, sales. I was put under the direction of two sales people in central-northern Illinois, and experienced sales visits, product trial distribution, and creating usable data to be presentable to customers.  

This summer I also had to plan, collect data, and prepare a presentation thorughout the entirity of the internship, then present it to company executives. This was a very good learning experience for me as it forced me to really think about every detail and every piece of information I would need to collect in order to complete my project, because once the corn had passed that growth stage, there was no going back and collecting more. In addition, I was able to learn to put together a professional presentation and really improve my public speaking skills.

I learned a lot this summer and made a lot of new professional connections and friends.