There Goes Another Summer

Wow! It's hard to believe that the summer of 2012 is over, at least for me and many other young adults who are returning to their respective colleges. Every year it seems like the summer goes faster and faster! However, I guess if a person is having fun, usually the time goes by fast anyways, and that is exactly what happened this last summer!

So how does a college student like myself spend their summer? Well, like many, I spent the majority of my summer interning with a company. I was fortunate enough to intern with Cooperative Producers Inc. (CPI), which is headquartered in Hastings, Nebraska. CPI is a diversified agricultural cooperative where they deal with grain, agronomy, energy, feed, and even owns a few convenience stores called Ampride. CPI's territory covers a large portion of South Central Nebraska and has locations in many rural communities.

While interning with CPI, I was able to see the different parts of the cooperative and how a cooperative functions. I was based in Blue Hill, Nebraska and spent the first part of my internship scouting fields to identify weeds and look for pests. I also checked the fields after they had been sprayed to make sure the chemical worked and didn't harm any crops. Before starting my internship, I had no experience in the agronomy area, as I am an Ag business major. So learning how to identify weeds, diseases and other pests was a great learning opportunity! The second part of my internship involved creating a training video for CPI's sales people on the new CPI 300 program! This was another part of the internship that I enjoyed as I not only got to test my movie making skills, but also learned quite a bit about the new program that will help farmers increase their corn yields to 300 bushels and soybean yields to 100 bushels on a consistent basis. Along with scouting fields and creating a training video, I also had the opportunity to spend a day with the grain marketing guys, which was interesting, especially with how volatile the markets have been this summer!

Although learning about how a cooperative works and getting hands on experience was all great, the part I especially enjoyed was getting to know all the people who work at CPI. I have always said that it is not necessarily the work that makes the job fun, but it's the people who I work with that makes it fun! I was very fortunate to work with a great group of people at CPI who made it a fun internship!

Besides being an intern, I also was able to have some fun this summer as well. When I wasn't working I would usually spend my time going to the lake, chilling with friends, attending friends weddings, going to the county fair, or helping out on the family farm! Overall, it was another great summer filled with fun and learning.

Unfortunately it's time to get back into the "college" mode and prepare myself for my last year of college! It's hard to believe that the "real world" is right around the corner and will be here before I know it! But until then, I think I am just going to enjoy the life of a college student!