Week Five with Extension with Cole Chapman

Wheat yield measuring at Eric Spate’s farm in Poolesville during Tuesday's farm tour.

This week was a little more relaxed compared to the last. I spent a lot of time in the office researching and writing articles. There were still some interesting things that happened. The first conversation during our weekly WFD discussion meeting was about our vision, our mission, and the statements associated with them. 

When asked about my vision for the future, I realized that there wasn’t a way to describe it properly. There was a lot of hesitation and uncertainty because I genuinely don’t have one clear focus, one clear direction in life. There are some things that I know I want to pursue, but none of them stand out as the “perfect”, end-all-be-all, of who I want to be. In the end, I realized that my current vision is to find the thing(s) that I believe can fix the world. As vague as my answer is, it is the truth. I have yet to plot my course through the sea of possibilities presented before me because I’ve been searching for the “perfect” path when in reality, the perfect route is the one I choose to take. This leads to my mission statement to just do things instead of agonizing about the perfect end goal. Go take that interesting-looking class, start a handball team at UMD, go do an internship in a field I had never considered, go do something. Again, as vague and imperfect as these statements feel, they best describe my current vision and mission.

Vision and mission aside, some other things happened this week. On Tuesday, I went on a farm tour hosted by the National Wheat Foundation. The idea behind the tour was to get some policymakers out of DC to see what a functioning farm looks like. The tour provided a glimpse of wheat harvest and information related to growing wheat and other crops. I had scouted wheat a few times, but I still learned some new things from the tour. At the farm, there was a panel discussion about policies and government organizations related to wheat production and farming. Lastly, it served as a good way to network with policy-related interns from around the country.

Horses at CMREC

On Wednesday, I toured the Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC) and its equine program. I learned about forage grasses, how horses are cared for, and some pests associated with equine operations. The latter half of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were spent in the office. I finished the Corn Earworm article I had been working on for the past couple of weeks, and I helped with another weed of the week article. Overall I feel like my writing could improve, so I hope to keep getting more opportunities to work on my research and writing skills throughout the rest of this internship.

Horses at CMREC