Recruiting the next generation of poultry professionals

Abstract

Summary: While the number of students pursuing animal science degrees is increasing, more students are further removed from food animal production. There are not enough graduates to fill available jobs in agriculture. The poultry industry has a strong presence in the Midwest, but there are limited opportunities in many undergraduate programs to expose students to the industry and careers. Therefore, we created a 1-credit course to expose and engage students with the poultry industry and measured student self-reported curiosity, knowledge, and career awareness. “Cracking the Poultry Industry” was offered for the first time in Spring 2019 to 24 students with the goal of providing an overview of the Indiana and US poultry industries. Students completed a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the semester where they were asked to share their curiosity of the industry and their interest in pursuing a career in the poultry industry. Student curiosity was moderately high at the start of the course and remained high at the end of the semester. Although not all students were interested in pursuing careers in the industry, by the end of the course, all students acknowledged that they were more aware of career opportunities. Student-written responses at the end of the course indicated increased knowledge of poultry production and a greater career awareness compared with the beginning of the semester. Short survey courses, similar to ours, may be viable options for programs seeking to increase competent graduates with interest in pursuing careers in the poultry industry.

Keywords

• education
• industry
• interest
• poultry
• undergraduate