Developing something

The first ‘normal’ day of our trip began with another ride from Dr. Tanner. We headed to Texas Tech’s Student Union. It was…newer than the Illini Union to say the least. We broke out into different sections, luckily for everyone, each person had a partner with which to develop our professional skills. There were three different sections we got to go to.

One of them was called ‘Agvocacy.’ Ooooo! Wordplay! Josh Winegarner came in and talked about his work in Washington. It was good to hear about what topics are currently on the table for agriculture legislatures. The network news programs don’t tend to cover these subjects as well as they should. I went up and talked to him about something I had heard about Rick Santorum that has never been addressed on MSNBC in the mornings. We kept talking and he gave me his card and took my name. I may have just found myself an internship for the summer. I’d say that was professional development.

Another session we attended was event planning. Diane Johnson talked us through her system, one that she has spent years perfecting. We took notes. She went through the different ways to delegate responsibility and whom to have on your team. Detail-oriented, dedicated people make the best teams. Most importantly seemed to be the finances and connections, which tend to go hand-in-hand.

The last breakout session was about social media; a subject we can never seem to hear enough about, nor should we. Did you know that 97% of Pinterest users are women? Yeah, neither did we. Danielle and I shared this information with everyone else at lunch. In turn, they told us about the tour of Texas Tech they chose to go on.

These breakout sessions were helpful and taught us a lot. Even thought we did a lot of sitting and listening, each time we had the opportunity to ask questions, which of course we did. Did we develop as professionals? I’d say so, or at least at our hand-raising abilities.