I love mentoring students – both graduate and undergraduate. It was my favorite thing about my job in academia. It is the part of academia I hated to leave. I am fortunate that I am still asked to participate in career-building and activities with students and I am thankful many of them still reach out to me when they have that sudden feeling of, “ Oh no, what now?” or, "What do I want to do when I grow up?" (They always laugh when I tell them I am 50 and I still don’t know what I am going to do when I grow up!)

I know that mentoring was and probably still is one of my main drivers and purposes in my life. So many students need direction. We ask them to “Google it” way too many times in the classroom as well as outside the classroom. How are we stepping up to mentor the youth of today to be our industry leaders of tomorrow? Internships — that’s how.

It’s that time again, time to apply for internships, probably one of the most impactful activities a student can do in their college career. I have always felt that internships (both graduate and undergraduate) should be mandatory and I pushed for that during my time in academia. Internships allow for life-long lessons and skills and students can apply knowledge from the classroom to real life examples. It is enlightening and empowering.

Most professors in academia spend too much time on book smart — and honestly, I can look up the reactions involved with curing on Google. That’s not what is important: What's important is the combination of learning the science, learning the industry/business and learning the reality. It is the “Oh, crap” moment when something goes wrong and people look to you to fix it. There is nothing better than real hands-on experience to handle that decision-making. I know many companies have internships and I thank you for the experience you provide to students.

An internship is a time to learn. It is the time to make mistakes and take away life lessons. It is not the time to “make them tough” but it is it time to teach and reflect and strive for continuous improvements. That “tough challenge” is not the way most people learn, and many good people will walk away from our industry just because they don’t fit the tough guy/girl image. None of this is to say that there are not the lazy kids or the bad bosses — they do exist, but I am a firm believer that those people are rare exceptions out of the many great people in our industry willing to teach and mentor.

With fewer and fewer poultry schools available and fewer and fewer students going into the poultry industry when they graduate, our ability to have strong leaders in the next generation is a growing concern. How can we, as an industry, help?

Well, when we hire interns, have an educational growth plan for them. Set goals and milestones and allow them the opportunity to discuss parts of the job they liked and what they did not like and why. Allow them to fail and learn and succeed and learn. During the internship, not only teach them their job duties but have someone mentor them. They need an experienced and trusted adviser as a guide to teach them about our industry.

Check in with your intern, ask questions, learn their strengths and put those strengths to good use. Using strengths is what builds confidence. Interact with them and teach them about good leadership. When the internship is complete, have them present to the upper management team what they learned along with their successes and failures. This reflection time is meant to identify areas for continuous improvement for both the student and the company.

I have been involved with and worked in this industry for many years, and the reason why I am still here and love this group so much is because I had great mentors and leaders who helped me build on my strengths. Thanks to those allowing this growth to happen with current students and thanks for creating the next generation of leaders.

Internship empowerment

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