82-Lancast«r Farming, Saturday, June 1,1985
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Is a degree necessary for success
By SUZANNE KEENE
LANCASTER At one time a
young person who wanted to land a
job in agriculture took vo-ag
classes in high school and worked
on a farm in the evenings. After
high school, he either went home to
help dad on the farm, found a
neighbor who needed some help, or
struck out on his own.
But agriculture is changing and
farmers and others in agriculture
related fields often need more
knowledge than they can get in
high school. That’s why many
students aspiring to ag careers
today decide to continue their
education at a college or univer
sity.
Just how important is a college
degree to success in agriculture 9
Isn’t it possible to learn just as
much on the job, without investing
thousands of dollars and four years
of life 9
For some graduates a college
degree has opened doors they
believe would have remr id
Kf
Kathy Strock cares for the young stock on her family’s. ilry
farm. She believes one of the contributions she’s made to the
farm is doing her chores more efficiently.
Shssf; i
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Kim Stroud has found her college education a valuable asset in her job as an ad
vertising specialist for Atlantic Breeders.
e education
closed without an education. Kim
Stroud, a 1981 University of
Maryland graduate, credits her
college advisor with indirectly
helping her land her first job as
associate editor of the American
Guernsey Cattle Club’s journal.
“You never know when they
(people she met m college) are
going to come back and help you,”
she says.
Kim entered West Virginia
Wesleyan with the intention of
getting a degree in extension home
economics. When selecting a
major, she said, she kept in mind
that girls were supposed to stick to
cooking and sewing. But a little
soul-searching revealed that home
economics wasn’t what she really
wanted to do, so she quit school and
spent the next two years milking
cows and working for a depart
ment store.
When her parents decided to
move close to the University of
Maryland, Kim went with them
and returned to school, this time
* ,
in ag meets?
for a degree in vocational
agriculture. Still unsure that she
was taking the right path, Kim
talked to a number of people and
finally took the advice of a friend
who told her that no matter what
aspect of agriculture she decided
to pursue, she would need com
munication skills. By working
closely with her advisors, she
developed her own major in ag
journalism.
Kim says her degree has helped
her, but adds, “It’s not the degree,
but what you learned while you
were there,” that is important.
And while classes and bookwork
are an essential and important
part of college, Kim says it is the
extracurricular activities that
have been especially helpful. “You
learn so much out of the classroom
setting,” she notes.
During her time at the
University of Maryland, Kim had
three internships, two in the ex
tension information department at
Maryland and the other in ex
tension working directly with a
county agent. “That, above all
else, has been the most im
portant,” Kim says.
Kim doesn’t believe she would be
at her present position as an ad
vertising specialist with Atlantic
Breeders in Lancaster if she hadn’t
gone to college Her journalism
courses have been especially
helpful to her as she develops
brochures, pamphlets and
educational materials
But her knowledge of cows,
honed during a year on the
University of Maryland dairy
cattle judging team, has also been
important. At Atlantic she
supervises cattle photography, a
job which requires the ability to
separate the good cows from the
bad. “You’ve got to know what a
good cow looks like," she says.
Agri-Graphics cow photographer
Sylvia Cooper, a a 1982 Penn State
graduate, also needs to know a
good cow when she sees one. In her
job at Agri-Graphics Sylvia
photographs dairy cattle for
farmers. She must set the cow’s
feet and make noise to perk up the
ears so the animal looks its very
best in the picture.
When Sylvia decided to go to
college she had no idea that she
would end up taking pictures of
cows. Before going to Penn State,
she obtained a degree in en
vironmental science from Slippery
Rock. She worked for a short time
setting up an environmental
learning program for a school
district, but eventually worked
herself out of a job.
It was then she decided to return
kr
S'"
One of Kathy Strock's jobs on the farm is breeding the
cows. Here she takes a straw of semen from the deep-freeze.
College courses at Penn State have been helpful in making
breeding decisions, Kathy says.
to school. “I decided I as going to
go for something I really enjoyed
and that was dairy production,"
she says.
After graduation Sylvia went to
work on a dairy farm. From there
she went to Lancaster Farming as
livestock editor, and then on to
Atlantic Breeders as a linear mate
specialist.
Like Kim, Sylvia says that the
people she met at college have
been important to her success
“It’s all the contacts I made in
school and the friends I made there
that are the most important," she
stresses. Without them, she says
she probably wouldn’t be where
she is today.
A total of seven years of college
have provided Sylvia with a wealth
of knowledge to draw on. “All the
education has just broadened my
background and you draw on all
these things when you need them,”
she says.
Although Sylvia says her
education has been valuable, she
doesn’t think a college degree is
essential to success. “I wouldn’t
say you have to go to school to be a
success,” she says. "If you really
want to, you can stay home on the
farm and learn what you need to be
a success.”
But a college education can be
useful on the farm. Nancy Jarrett,
a 1977 Delaware Valley College
graduate, has been putting her
education to work on the dairy
farm she and her husband, Mike,
operate together in Montgomery
Mike and Nancy married shortly
after Nancy graduated from
Delaware Valley with a degree in
dairy husbandry.
While Mike liked the cows,
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Nancy says, he never had them
milking to their capacity and she
made it her job to increase the
herd’s productivity They manage
the herd together, but it is Nancy
who makes most of the breeding
decisions and who formulates the
feed, while Mike concentrates his
efforts on crops.
Experience on DelawAf
Valley’s dairy judging team taught
Nancy to recognize a good co«|,
knowledge that has been
cow selection. A college education
has also been helpful in for
mulating feed and in making
general management decisions,
she adds.
The college education gave me
a lot of management ideas,"
Nancy says. While in college she
had the opportunity to visit a
number of farms and to observe
different operations, giving her
new ideas about running a dairy
farm.
Nancy drew on her education
when she and Mike were planning
the dairy barn they recently in
stalled. "I brought in a lot of ideas
from my management classes at
school,” she notes.
A work-study program at
Delaware Valley offered Nancy an
opportunity to get some hands-on
experience to complement her
classwork.
Nancy believes college is a good
experience and provides a time to
see and learn more things, away
from your own farm. An education
is especially important today,
when dairying is becoming more of
a professional business.
"It’s going to take a well
managed dairy person to do a good
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