The start of a new journey...

Hey everyone! I decided to start this blog as a reference and starting point to look back on as I travel through life and my journey through college! My main focus throughout will be my perspective on Agriculture and how it is different and how it changes and I strive to get accepted into one of the hardest things to get into...Vet School!

To better understand where I am coming from, you need to know a little bit of history about me!

I was raised on a small farm in northeastern South Dakota where the grass is either green, gone, or flooded! My dad and my brother farm on the family farm west of Turton. We have a grain operation (raising corn, beans, and wheat) but we also run a cow/calf operation of purebred Charolais, which is where I come in! :) I may not be much help when it comes to the grain, but when you put me out with the cows, I am in Heaven! I have been showing cattle with my brother for 13 years now and have loved every minute of it! As I was getting older and starting to plan my career after graduation from high school, I started to consider the idea of vet school. I was leery about the idea until I job shadowed Dr. Jon Schmidt with Trans Ova Genetics. That's when I knew where I belonged in this world!

So, upon graduation from Northwestern Area High School in May of 2010, I moved 9 hours from home and began my college career at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS...which brings us up to present day. Not realizing how much of a bubble South Dakota really was in, I went to my first Animal Science class expecting it to be all cowboys and cowgirls with their boots on and ready to get dirty! Not so! Forgetting that there are many different types of veterinarians other than cow, sheep, horse, and pig people, I was thrown into a room with people wanting to focus on and be vets strictly for exotic animals and even one student who raises iguanas! I felt so out of place in an environment I was sure I would blend into!
As time went on, I found my group of people that did have the same interests as me and were in Animal Science & Industry for the same reasons I was...Large animal and Livestock!

So, as I continue down this path towards distant success, I hope you will travel with me! I am sure to experience many new and challenging things and hopefully open up my mind and broaden my view on "agriculture." Will this bring me closer to my small farm South Dakota roots? Only time will tell...