- Name:
- Michelle Meier
- Major:
- Agricultural Education
- Year:
- Graduated May 2006
- Home:
- Dane, Wisconsin
One of the strengths of studying agricultural education at UWP is the caring professors that you get to work with and learn from. They will all get to know you by name, and know your interests. Another great thing about being an agricultural education major is that you have a choice between two outstanding advisors, Dr. Mark Zidon and Dr. Rick Bockhop. Both are willing to help you out in advising, not only about your academic questions but when life's problems roll around, they are full of advice and great ideas. The education department has been very helpful, too. The clinical experiences department works hard to get us meaningful student teaching assignments, and I'm really looking forward to doing my student teaching in Sun Prairie this spring.
Each day there would be five to eight of us from ag gathering for lunch in the Pioneer Student Center. One neat aspect of our lunches is that our professors from the School of Agriculture, especially Dr. Bockhop, would come and join us and we would get into some interesting conversations, ranging from what we are learning in our classes to what we are discovering through our life experiences. We've had some great educational conversations, but a lot of laughs, too and I'll have many memories from those lunches.
Having the farm here offers us many applied learning experiences, like the time we built a concrete sidewalk outside the student farm workers' house for my environmental structures class. We also built a shed over the "manure monster" which is a machine used to separate solids from liquids. We learned where and how to build structures for the best environmental effect, like where to build wells in relation to manure pits and livestock areas. It's very helpful to actually be doing these things out at the farm, rather than just learning theory in class. Our farm has great up-to-date facilities and we learn a lot about the latest innovations in agriculture.
One of the best times I've had at UWP was when I participated in the Collegiate FFA (formerly known as Future Farmers of America) Quiz Bowl contest in Louisville, Kentucky. There were about 23 universities represented there and we won first place, which was pretty exciting.