KINGSVILLE (Oct. 08, 2024) — The Dick and Mary Lewis Kleberg College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) hosted the Undergraduate Career Experiences and Research Showcase on Friday, Oct. 4 at the Memorial Student Union Building Ballrooms. More than 50 students were able to show off their internship experiences with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agencies, Texas A&M-AgriLife, TAMU-Soltis Center, Meat Industry, and partnering universities.
Participating undergraduates presented their research and experiences in detail via an on-stage presentation or a viewing board Q&A. It’s the first time the college has held the showcase since before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are very excited to be able to host this event again,” said Dr. Maria Consuelo Donato Molina, Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction for the Department of Agriculture, Agribusiness and Environmental Sciences said. “Now we started over and we have 53 students supported through seven different USDA grants and who were exposed to different learning experiences within the country in Nebraska, Louisiana and Texas. Others had the opportunity to take a class and go outside the country to Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica. We had so many opportunities for these students and seeing them taking advantage of this has been wonderful.”
Students participated in one of seven internship programs that are all grant funded through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-HSI Program, which serves Hispanic-Serving Institutions in their ability to provide high education programs. and via on-stage presentations and viewing board Q&A sessions.
Featured programs from the showcase included GO START NOW, AgriCULTURE, Drone Wave FACTOR, Connecting the Dots, International Agriculture, the Natural Resource Career Development Program (NRCDP) and the Manager Education and Agriculture Skills (MEATS’) Workforce.
While the showcase gave dozens of students the opportunity to showoff exciting life experiences, it was also meant to help garner attention towards the available opportunities in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and encourage more participation.
“This is a great recruiting event to get students to apply to next year’s program and the years following that,” said Dr. Randy Stanko, professor of reproductive physiology in the department of Animal Science. “Our students are great. It’s a competitive program. We had 100 students apply and we selected 53. We made the tough selection and they participated in the programs in the spring and summer. This was their chance to shine and they did a wonderful job.”
View more photos from the event here.
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