Flock to Your Future

By: Emily Zahurones

Internships and career opportunities for CALS students can come from all corners of agriculture, from crop and livestock production to natural resource management. For students with a strong interest in poultry production, CALS has a night specifically designed just for them. Each fall, representatives and professionals from the poultry industry descend on Ames, Iowa to network with students looking to launch their careers in the sector of animal agriculture.

The Flock to Your Future Poultry Education Night is designed to expose students in a variety of majors about career opportunities in the poultry industry. The night features several presentations about different facets of the poultry industry including time for networking with potential employers.

“When the industry is talking, then the students can understand who [industry representatives] are and who they represent,” said Lesa Vold, communications specialist for the Egg Industry Center. “Then we have a networking time with refreshments which gives the kids a better opportunity to target who they want to talk to, and they have good conversations from there with industry.”

Both undergraduate and graduate students listened to brief messages from numerous organizations focusing on their companies, their career segments and future job opportunities. The companies and organizations represented a variety of specialty areas, from food safety and processing to live production, research, feed nutrition and engineering.

Val-Co - agribusiness Henning Companies – communications and engineering Diamond V – health and disease Tyson – processing Devenish Nutrition – feed and nutrition Iowa State University – food science and food safety Hy-Line - genetics West Liberty Foods – live production Michael Foods – research and development ILC Resources – sales Iowa Poultry Association – Iowa chicken industry overview Iowa Turkey Federation – Iowa turkey industry overview

Austin Day, a Iowa State senior in agronomy and first time attendee, talked about his favorite parts of attending the event, “I enjoyed the diversity of backgrounds that each speaker had and being able to talk to each of them about their area of expertise at the end of the event. I would definitely recommend this event to anyone who is interested in learning more about the poultry industry.”

Several changes were made to the event since its first year in 2018 to make it more friendly to students and professionals alike. In the fall of 2018, the event was set up in roundtables for students to rotate through and hear about the different companies and organizations. Last year, it was approached as more of a classroom setting. Each industry had the chance to present the entire body of students rather than repeating themselves several times. Students can later meet one on one with those speakers during the networking hour later that night.

“It seemed to work best this year to rotate the industry in front of the students and the students seem to get more out of it because they weren't worried about where to go next,” Vold said. “For me, the exciting part [of Poultry Education Night] is when you see students realize that real-life opportunities exist somewhere that they didn’t even know about.”

The door is open to anyone who is interested in this fall semester and wants to get involved in the third annual Flock to your Future Poultry Education Night. It is a 2-hour event in the evening at the Farm Bureau Pavilion in Kildee Hall on campus. Contact Lesa Vold with questions and ways to get involved at lvold@iastate.edu.