I'll be attending college, starting in the fall.
I'll attend this college for two years.
After two years, I will either switch colleges, or start farming/apprenticing.
I feel that getting straight to work on my farm, or apprenticing, would be a better use of my time. It would allow me to get straight to work, without being so fiscally burdensome.
However, if I do stay in college, I would transfer to a school with a program in agriculture that offered internship opportunities.
I feel that there's a lot of societal pressure to attend college for 4 years, even though it might not be completely beneficial.
It really just depends where you want to go with your life. If you're content with agriculture, then by all means follow that path. Though I plan to go to school for at least four years, I agree there is too much pressure for anyone deemed "smart" to get a cookie-cutter education and set the same goals. Good luck man.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is lot of pressure to go to school for 4 years, even if it's for a stupid degree. When looking at someone's education society seems to think quanity vs quality.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that two year and tech schools are great! The careers they lead to are way more interesting and rewarding--that's my opinion anyway!
Good luck!
Hi there! I found you via some other blog I believe, and I'd like to sit down over tea with you... but we're a few thousand miles away. So I'd like to write you a letter, but you'd be crazy to give out your mailing address to some random woman who commented on your blog, unless maybe it happened to be a PO Box. So, I'll just write you a REALLY long comment :-)
ReplyDeleteJust so you know where I'm coming from: I'm a 25 year old college grad with degrees in English and in Theatre. I work at a Domestic Violence shelter as a legal advocate and I am buying a homestead with my husband and my best friend. I don't intend to farm as my vocation, but homestead to support us (ie feed us!) while I stay home with eventual kids and livestock and make art and a home. In high school I'm sure most of my teachers expected me to go to an ivy league school. I went to a very-much not Ivy league school, because I could pursue what I was then interested in, and ended up pursuing something totally different. oh well. (which is not to suggest that I think you'll change your mind)
Keep reading everything you can get your hands on! Joel Salatin is great. Expand tho! Dirty Life. Animal Vegetable Miracle. Omnivore’s Dillema. Wendell Berry. Botany of Desire. Independence and five acres. The Good Life by Scott and Helen Nearing. Manuals (storey publishing is good) on raising the poultry and dairy animals you want… read and re read till you soak in the knowledge. If you’re thinking upstate New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine: read books and memoirs of people who’ve lived lives there. Take out subscriptions to Mother Earth Neww. You CAN learn a lot from books. Read as widely as you can about farming and gardening. That way you can form your own opinions, and they can be informed opinions.
ReplyDeleteLook into sustainable agriculture degrees and see what pre-reqs they have. Most places require basic/core courses before you really delve into your major. See what of those you can get done at Simon’s.
ReplyDeleteGet hands on experience. Every little bit helps :-) Official internships are awesome, of course. But chances are, if you’re persistent and willing to work for free, you can get all kinds of experience. Look into working/apprenticing on a CSA, too. Vegetables may not be what you intend to be your main focus/crop; but you’ll learn lots of valuable things about dirt and soil, about sunlight, about growing seasons, about bugs and pests, about marketing, about building relationships with customers, about rain and water and irrigation, about the rhythms of the natural world that LA tends to insulate a person from. And you’ll get some great callouses!
If you haven’t been reading CAF already, do so! Go back the beginning and read through to the present. Gives great perspective on growth of a small farm. See if you can’t go help Jenna for a few weekends, you’ll be in her general area!
Student debt. BE CAREFUL! If these nay-sayers aren’t paying for your tuition and books; are you willing to pay a monthly bill every month for 10 years or more for following their advice? Even going to state University with remarkably low in-state tuition rates, I racked up $20k of student loans. Farmers tend to survive, not make enough to pay off massive debt. And you’ll likely end up with the debt of buying the farm, and the animals and the equipment if you’re not working an off-farm job to finance it in the beginning.
Think of money as a tool.
Take classes that intrigue you. Liberal arts teaches how to think – how to reason. How to problem solve. How to apply creativity. These are all vital for a farmer. Just because college isn’t necessary doesn’t mean that you can’t get your own good experiences out of it.
Use the next two years as a tool. You ‘ll be on the other side of the country. Meeting new people and new perspectives. That’s good. You’ll need to deal with lots of people –customers, suppliers, legislators – as a farmer.
Or take classes that could prove useful! (Sounds like the profs will work with you to let you learn what you want to learn)
Accounting.
Tax law?
Mechanical engineering – if you don’t gotta pay to get the tractor fixed, that’s that much less profits gone.
Bio chemistry – what do pesticides really do?
Genetics – GMO’s and Monsanto – the genes are infiltrating cornfields, how to prevent that? How to breed heirlooms?
Ecology. That’s what a farm is, a mini-ecosystem where you have a bunch of control over parts of it. Learn how eco-systems work, so you can make your own and keep it healthy…
History – can you do a term paper on how technological innovations in farming and agriculture practices brought about historical change? Influenced political processes?
Civics or Political Economy or what not : as a small farmer, you’ll want to know how to use the system of state and federal legislatures to protect your enterprises, to lobby to allow small scale processing etc etc
Intro to Veterinary Science.
Etc.
Grow some peas in your dorm room.
Good luck.
Sorry for the multiple comments! It wouldn't let me post it all at once...
ReplyDelete:-)