Chasing your passion
We love encouraging students to study agriculture, we carry on all the time about how you really can help the world – you neighbourhood, your state, your country. This is a fantastic article about a ‘townie’ named Sam and the barriers he came up against to study ag, and how passion about feeding a growing population took him down the path he’d always wanted. Thanks to Art for Agriculture for the article. This is a small excerpt, the link for the full article is at the bottom. Enjoy!
Going through high school I always wanted to study agriculture but regrettably, I never did. At my school, students and some teachers mocked agriculture as a “bludge subject” for “drop kicks” and “no hopers”. In Year 11 I somehow worked up the courage to enroll in it. However, after just two weeks, I had dropped it because I couldn’t handle the flak that I copped from my mates. At school I was ashamed of my soft spot for agriculture. Now in the second year of my Agricultural Science degree at The University of Sydney, this soft spot has grown into a passion that I am unreservedly proud of.
Almost until the end of my time at school, a career in agriculture was never a consideration for me. Half-way through Year 12 I remember trying to work out what type of engineer I was going to be. It was not until I listened to a speech delivered by Dr. Julian Cribb that I started taking agriculture seriously. He convinced me that with a growing world population, climatic instability and dwindling natural resources, global food security is under imminent threat and preserving it will be the challenge of our generation. This alarmed and inspired me. It enabled me to realise the crucial importance of agricultural science and that I can use it as a mechanism to create a significant difference in the world.