As I’m sitting here finishing my last classes and projects as a college student, I can’t help but get distracted with thinking about the fact that I will be graduating and entering the real world in two weeks!

This completely blows my mind that my four years here at Purdue have already flown by so fast! It’s an exciting, yet scary time because my fellow classmates and I will be closing the current chapter of our lives and starting a whole new one.

We have all worked so hard to get to this point and I am proud to say that I have secured a full time job! Several others in my graduating class have secured jobs as well so I wanted to use this blog post to showcase some of their accomplishments.

The first soon-to-be graduate that I would like to highlight is my good friend Jamie Fuchs. Jamie is from my hometown and we went to high school together. It is really neat that I get to graduate college in the same class as her!

I asked Jamie what her future plans were and she was thrilled to share them with me.

“I am very excited to have accepted a position as Herdsman at Clear Water Simmentals in Milan, Indiana. I’ll be responsible for 90 cows and prepping some show/sale stock, living the dream! I can’t wait to graduate so I don’t have the chaos of dealing with homework and studying while working at the same time!!” Fuchs said.

I am very excited for Jamie because she is doing something that she absolutely loves so I know she will do great!

The second senior I wanted to share with you is Jaclyn Jessen from the animal science department. I met Jaclyn several years ago and we have become good friends over the years in our animal science classes.

I also asked Jaclyn what she would be doing and I was happy to learn that she will be close to me for her job!

“After graduation, I will be moving to Indianapolis, IN. I will be working as a Conservation Education Assistant as the Indianapolis Zoo and will be teaching people of all ages on conservation and animal facts. My experience at Purdue has been the best four years of my life, however, I am excited be in the “real world,” get married in August, and move on to the next chapter of my life!” Jessen said.

Wow, how exciting!

And finally, I wanted to showcase my fellow AgComm’er Christy Penner.

Christy will also be close to me in Indianapolis with her new job, and am glad to have another graduate with me who’s going in to the crop industry.

“I’m working for Dow Agrosciences, and I’ll be a sales rep on the crop protection side. My training territory is in central to northern Indiana and Illinois. After that, I’ll have my own territory which is yet to be determined. I’ll work with cooperatives and Ag chemical retailers to provide safe effective crop protect with the goal of maximizing growers’ yields and profits. My job combines sales, which I enjoy because I love helping meet people’s needs, communication and marketing. I will also be doing a lot of travelling. I’m excited to grad because I like new challenges and adventures, that’s what the work world holds. I love my new job and the company I work for.  I will miss all the people that have made my college career so great but take what they’ve taught me and help others grow,” Penner said.

All three of these girls have great futures ahead of them, and I am excited to be joining them in the workforce!

Next time, I will share my future plans with all of you as part of my “Farewell Blog” since this is the last week of our Boilercamp.us blogs. So make sure to check back tomorrow!