Purdue Opportunities: Expand Your Horizons
Hello, Everyone!
My name is Ross Kindig, and I am a junior majoring in Agronomic Business and Marketing and Agribusiness Management. I used to think that the toughest decision to make when coming to college was choosing a major, but I quickly realized that this was not the case. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to spend your time and capitalizing on opportunities that interest you most-whether it is during the school year or on summer break. On campus, I am involved in the Agronomy Club, the Purdue Student Soybean Innovation Competition, I work in the Purdue Athletics Department, and I live in Circle Pines Cooperative. When summer rolls around, it is understandable to want a break; but in my case, I quickly realized that having an entire summer to myself would be flat-out boring. Internships and study abroad experiences have been a great way for me to experience new places and career opportunities outside the confines of academics.
In my first “collegiate summer” after freshman year (Summer 2017), I interned with DuPont Pioneer in Worthington, IN. I lived by myself and was approximately 3.5 hours away from home. Some might think- “But Ross, how is living on your own during an internship any different than living on your own at college?” To put it plainly, during the school year, there isn’t any money coming in, instead there are large sums of money flowing out. During the internship, there were paychecks coming in weekly, which opened up my spending options. Oddly enough, I was more frugal during the summer internship than the school year. I set a personal record of refusing to use the stove or oven for the three months that I lived by myself. Needless to say, I ate quite a bit of cereal and ham sandwiches. If it couldn’t be cooked in a microwave, I didn’t buy it. That summer was a great introduction to the corporate atmosphere of agricultural businesses and I learned quite a bit about networking and establishing a passion for what you do.
This past summer, Summer 2018, I decided to study abroad. I knew that studying abroad was something I wanted to do during my time at Purdue, and I would ultimately regret it if I didn’t. Choosing the study abroad program was tough, as I had to identify my areas of interest and find a destination that was interesting as well. I wanted to learn about production agriculture in other countries and I wanted to go to a unique place, so I chose to go to New Zealand for a Maymester. IT WAS AWESOME. There was a group of 14 Purdue Ag students that went on the trip, and we instantly became friends and had a great time! We got to see a huge 100,000+ acre sheep farm that produced Merino wool (my favorite part of the trip), a few wineries, a robotic dairy farm, and an inside look at New Zealand government. We jumped from place to place pretty much every other day. We were engulfed in Maori culture, visited countless national parks and nature reserves, tried amazing new food, and spent nights anywhere from the hearts of cities to desolate rural towns. The biggest takeaway from the trip was a new appreciation for the global scope of agriculture and worldwide agricultural markets.
I am gearing up for my final collegiate summer (Summer 2019) and I will be making a return to internships. My ultimate goal was to find an internship within the commodities sector of agriculture, an area that I have always been interested in, but I haven’t had much hand-on experience. In the past few weeks I have submitted multiple applications and have been interviewed by a few companies. I went up to Minnesota to interview with Cargill for a commodity trading internship, and after the rounds of interviews, we were asked to rank our location preferences. Drawing upon my past experience and adventurous ambition, I ranked the Western US as my top choice. Earlier this week I accepted a position with them at their Ferndale, WA location, which sure is as far west as I can get in the continental United States. I’m very excited to learn about commodity marketing and to live in yet another new place!
Until Next Time,
Boiler Up