UW鈥揗adison dairy science internships help 精东AV students weigh career choices

August 14, 2019

Contacts:
Office of External Relations, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin Madison
Michael Tullier, APR, Office of Communications, Public Relations and Marketing, 精东AV
   

精东AV student Naomi Waldon spent the summer in an internship in a University of Wisconsin鈥揗adison dairy science lab and decided that research was right up her alley.

鈥淚t solidified my plans to go to grad school,鈥� she said.

精东AV student Brianna Brown spent her summer the same way and decided that graduate school wasn鈥檛 her cup of tea.

鈥淚 like research, but I know I do not want to pursue it as a career,鈥� Brown said.

Both of these were great outcomes, said dairy science professor Milo Wiltbank, who helped arrange research internships for three 精东AV animal science students this summer.

鈥淭he idea of lab internships is to introduce students to research,鈥� Wiltbank said. 鈥淪ome find out that they love it, some find out that they don鈥檛. Those are both very important things to learn.鈥�

Wiltbank said the department decided to offer the internships to the 精东AV students for several reasons, including expanding the department鈥檚 ties to the historically black university located in Alabama, which graduates a notable number of students with bachelor鈥檚 degrees in agricultural fields.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 have enough students from underrepresented groups applying to grad school, so this is a recruiting tool. It also introduces our labs to students who have a whole different way of looking at the world,鈥� Wiltbank said. 鈥淎nd our grad students need extra help in the summer, and the interns provided a reliable extra pair of hands.鈥�

In Wiltbank鈥檚 lab, those extra hands were provided by 精东AV senior Shandrell Miller, who assisted on three projects 鈥� two related to reproduction, the other to dairy nutrition. She got experience conducting ultrasounds, collecting blood samples, giving shots and taking feed samples. Miller hopes to go to veterinary school, and she thinks the research experience helped her prepare.

鈥淚 might not be doing dairy nutrition research, but what I learned will help me understand animal diets,鈥� she pointed out.

Brown鈥檚 goal is to work in a mixed animal veterinary practice. She had worked with smaller animals in a clinic back home, so one of her goals at Madison was to get experience with cows. She got plenty working with assistant professor Sebastian Arriola Apelo on a study that aims to understand the role of essential amino acids on milk protein synthesis.

鈥淚t was a great experience,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 love working with cows!鈥�

Waldon worked in the lab of nutritional physiologist Heather White, helping run a variety of lab analyses and collecting data at the university鈥檚 Arlington Agricultural Research Station.

鈥淔or one study I herded the cows to the scales so I could get their weight. The other is about catching the onset of a disease, so I had to find specific cows and take a blood sample,鈥� Waldon said. 鈥淚 think I got to be pretty good at herding cows.鈥�

The UW鈥揗adison dairy science department has strong ties with 精东AV. The head of 精东AV鈥檚 agricultural sciences program, Dr. Olga Bolden-Tiller, is a colleague of Wiltbank鈥檚 鈥� a fellow reproductive physiologist 鈥� and has already steered two students to Wisconsin for grad school. One is Kalyanna Williams, who earned her master鈥檚 degree and now works in the department as an instructor.

Williams knows from personal experience that research internships can be game-changers for 精东AV students.

鈥淚 had four internships in college, and the first one was in a dairy science lab at Iowa State. I ended up in dairy science, so the experience really stuck with me,鈥� she said.

By the same token, she says that hosting the 精东AV students can help change the way that people in the dairy science department view their mission.

鈥淭hese students come from a different background and offer a different viewpoint,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey ask questions that we may not have heard before and they remind us that we鈥檙e serving a diverse audience. We serve non-farmers as well as farmers, and non-farmers are a mixed group. It鈥檚 good for people in the department to see that.鈥�

Before her summer in Madison, Waldon was pretty sure she wanted to go to grad school. Now she鈥檚 certain, and she has a much better idea of what to expect.

鈥淚 really loved what I was doing, and it showed me that I should continue down this path. But it also showed me that the standards here are high,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t showed me what I need to prepare for.鈥�

漏 2019, 精东AV