What to Expect

There's a lot more to agriculture programs than you might expect.

"Agriculture is not only cows and grain," says Heather Aitken. She has a bachelor's degree in agriculture. "It is a wide and varied field with many opportunities for those who want to take advantage of them."

Agriculture grads work in the world of food production -- something vital to human survival.

Aitken majored in animal science. She says the first two years of her degree were tough. But if you stick with it, she adds, the pressure eases off.

"As you get further into the program, there are more papers and assignments to do, but they have definite significance to real-life work and are interesting," Aitken says.

Shelly Woodworth found her bachelor's degree program in agriculture to be quite challenging. Woodworth chose to specialize in environmental biology.

"In the first two years, it's hard core sciences with lots of lab work. And in the last two years, it's a lot of lab work, a lot of written reports and a lot of presentations," Woodworth says.

But Bradley Briggs says he didn't find his plant science program very tough. Briggs grew up on a potato farm, where he was infected with his parents' love for agriculture. When it was time to decide what to study in college, the choice was obvious.

Briggs didn't return to his parents' potato farm after graduation. He now works for an agricultural services company and says his degree prepared him very well for the work he does.

The production (dairy production, swine production, poultry production or beef production) and agricultural economics courses he took have come in particularly handy on the job, Briggs says.

Aitken also liked the production courses. Her favorite was dairy production. She also liked courses related to ruminants (hoofed mammals that chew cud, like cattle).

"I have a personal interest in pasture feeding for ruminants and as such really enjoyed the pasture management course that I took," says Aitken.