Here is a brief re-cap of our adventurous trip to Fort Collins to show off and apply our awesome horticulture skills at the 2014 Student Career Days.
On a warm, rainy Monday morning, 22 horticulture undergrads, 2 grad students, 3 professors, and 5-6 faculty and staff departed for the Atlanta airport. We made our way across the country, in groups or alone, to meet and gather with our fearless AU leaders, comprised of professors, faculty, and graduate students, in the Denver airport. Our army of AU horties amounted to a total of 32 Auburnites! We had come to Colorado prepared to divide and conquer this industry-wide annual competition, which began at Mississippi State University, I might add!
The sun was still vibrant and shining as we exited the Denver airport, walking out into the cool, blustery Colorado wind, lugging our bags onto the transit, which would take us to our fleet of Chrysler vans, which were stationed in the airport car rental lot. As we loaded up our vans, driven by our fearless leaders and one valiant undergraduate, Dalton Sconyer, we traveled across the wide open spaces of the great state of Colorado, driving towards the one thing that could sustain our tired, travel worn bodies, Mexican food! Once we fueled up after our Western meal, we caravan-ed to our warm, lovely, Hilton hotel, that exhibited a lobby and restaurant filled with hideous and noticeably fake silk botanicals-AKA fake flowers. We checked into our rooms, counseled before bed, as we did every evening to prep for the next day, and then gladly got into our warm beds.
Tuesday morning we were up and ready to hit the slopes, y'all! After a free buffet Hilton breakfast- woot, woot!- we packed up our crew and headed to Eldora ski resort for an entire day of skiing on the slopes! It was my first time skiing, as well as a few others, and I would like to say that I skied down the bunny slopes twice without falling! We headed back to the hotel for the evening and then made it over to Old Town, basically downtown, in Fort Collins for a nice, local dinner.
Wednesday we congregated in the hotel lobby around 9 AM and geared up for our adventure up the mountain to Rocky Mountain National Park! Fun fact, this park was established in 1915; I know this fact because the souvenir magnet I bought outside of the park gates says so. Most of the students went sledding and playing in the snow in a ski and snow play area called Hidden Valley (like the dressing Paul Newman makes for your salad) in an area of the park. After we left the park, I was fortunate enough to have dinner with my aunt and uncle, and my cousin, whom I had not seen in almost ten years!
Thursday was the preparation day for the battle against 64 other schools. This day... was workshop day! Each student attended the available workshops specific to their competition events, which basically prepared students for their competitions. I attended a 3 hour workshop called Environmental Sustainability, which pretty much discussed the importance of water-use and turf. After our workshops, all of the faculty, students, and whoever had a free lunch ticket piled into Durell, CSU's student union, for a yummy lunch! After lunch, the students returned to their workshops, if they had another, or met up back in the hotel next to the campus.
Friday was the Student Career Fair Day! What is that? Well, it's the day where landscape companies, designers, and architects, botanical gardens and sponsors set up booths to acquire and get to know the future of the green industry, the undergraduate students competing in the competitions.This is the day where students choose and get to know companies and professionals in the industry through interviews and well, just saying hello! What did I do? I helped one of my fabulous co-horts, Kira Chaloupka, collect data for her research by advertising and asking students to complete her survey during the student career fair event. AU had a rather large booth, you couldn't miss us, and we had several Ipad's and computers waiting to be used by students for Kira's data collection survey. Her survey basically consisted of collecting data on what draws students into the field horticulture and why. Kira's survey and results from the survey will help the green industry to recruit more students and figure out why our industry is lagging in respect to low college enrollment rates nation wide and the lack of awareness of the wonderful career opportunities in our field.
And since I am getting long winded on this post, I will just say that our AU undergrad hort students worked hard on Friday night's competition events, and worked even harder by battling and competing against other schools on Saturday in continuous snow and cold weather conditions outside! We made it through the cold, snowy, breezy conditions Saturday, and placed 24th in the 38th Student Career Days! Our students also placed first in two events and even received the $1,000 dollar prize from STIHL! We had a great time, represented our school splendidly, and left our mark on the green industry. By Sunday evening and early into the morning, our Auburn tigers were finally back in the plains. Great job to our horticulture undergrads on a great Student Career Days event!
Until next time, please continue to keep up with me and my fellow public horticulture graduate students as we show you and tell you about all of the wonderful news that the field of horticulture consists of!
-Hilary H. :)
