My Career Fair Experience
While attending the CALS career fair, I was fortunate enough to visit many booths for internship opportunities. Two places that I found the most interesting were Smithfield Packing and NC Extension. Smithfield Packing was not exactly a possible summer job for me, but I did form quite an interest at the NC Extension booth. After speaking to Mr. Stone, an extension agent, I found a lot of common ground between Agriculture Education and Extension.
What I learned about NC Extension is that they have a foundation that it is built on very similar programs to Agriculture Education. Things like community leadership, volunteer development, and life skills that young adults obtain in order to become successful. My career goals are to become an agricultural teacher; however an internship with extension would give me opportunities with diversity in agriculture and become a responsible advocate for agriculture.
Approaching the recruiters I felt calm, cool, and collected. I was very familiar with the extension agency from past 4-H experience so talking to the other agents was easy because of the background experience. I also learned that there are internship possibilities through the extension program. Depending on what program of interest you have will depict where your internship will be and who you will work under.
When hiring entry-level employees, NC Extension looks for people who are dedicated, experienced with the 4-H program (whether a lot or a little), and the desire to work with people. Most employees have a bachelors degree in Cooperative Extension or higher. There are also 1,398 full or part time employees. 791 faculty and staff are stationed in counties all over North Carolina.
After speaking with the other extension agents at the career fair, I have decided to try out an internship with Cooperative Extension during the summer back at home. I know many of the agents there that I would like to work closely to and be able to work within the different programs with extension. After a few years of teaching I may decide that its not what I was looking for as a career and may want to transfer over to extension. This would give me a good start.