A well-rounded experience

Internships are designed to expand a college student's education and provide them with real-world experience.

It's also an opportunity for a student to make connections with people, processes and companies that could have a major impact on their upcoming careers — while they are still in school.

That's what happened to Cole Bieker, a horticulture student at Kansas State University, when he participated in the internship program at Green Circle Growers in Oberlin, Ohio, in the spring of 2021.

His experience at Green Circle exposed him to so many different aspects of the horticulture industry that "it really did feel like I got to experience multiple internships squeezed into four months," he says. "At first it was intimidating but it was also exciting. Sometimes it seemed like I was working at four different companies because every day was so different in each area."

As a result of those experiences, Cole has been named the 2022 GPN/Prospiant Intern of the Year (formerly the GPN/Nexus Intern of the Year.)

The Adventure Begins

Cole is currently a senior at KSU and plans to graduate in December. Due to COVID-19, Cole opted to do a spring internship rather than a summer internship in 2021. "That turned out to be a really good decision because I felt like I really got to see a lot more as they went from the winter season into the busy spring season," he says.

Students participating in internship programs over the past two years have faced a multitude of challenges thanks to the pandemic. After being locked down with family and friends in Kansas, adapting to a new environment in a new state took a little getting used to for Cole when he moved to Ohio, but it also gave him a chance to focus on learning about horticulture and himself.

Before he left Kansas for Ohio, Cole developed a set of goals that he wanted to focus on during his time at Green Circle. The goals were divided into three distinct categories — technical aspects/production skills, business organization and communication.

"When looking at the communication goals, my focus was primarily on building relationships with coworkers, seeing new perspectives on the industry and working on my own social skills in a work setting," Cole says.

"I wanted to work on connecting with the people I was meeting and really get to know the growers I was working with … I put some extra intentional energy into that."

The Internship

Cole says the Green Circle internship program is focused on giving students a well-rounded experience and he really appreciated that. During his 16-week internship, he spent four weeks at four different facilities learning how and why Green Circle does what it does.

"Because each facility is so unique in its crop and processes, I was exposed to a variety of new growing perspectives and horticultural experiences," he remarks.

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Source: Greenhouse Product News