by Caroline Schier, Garden Intern 2013
| I have recently been reflecting on the past several weeks spent in the garden and how to carry this on in my future back at Purdue. The image that keeps coming to mind is our large career fair held each fall in which hundreds of industry companies come to recruit engineering students for internships. Here at Songaia, Laura and I are often referred to as the interns because that is exactly what we are for the community, helpers and learners at the same time. Yet, I picture the conversation I could have with a recruiter for one of these big name companies in the fall such as Caterpillar or John Deer when I tell them, “ Yes I had a summer internship, I WWOOFed at an intentional community and worked in a garden.” 
 I feel more in touch with the food that I eat and what it takes to get things to the table which I realize is largely taken for granted. These are not lessons I could have gotten in any old setting. Not to mention that the days I get spend whilst absorbing this knowledge are spent on tasks that no student working at Boeing for the summer could get to do. I wake up and weed a bed for winter planting, feed the goats, and harvest oodles of raspberries to make jam. | 
I suspect that a recruiter would be slightly taken aback by this untraditional experience. But, I can attest to anyone who questions it that I have learned many valuable lessons that could help me in the future in industry or any other field. I have learned the importance of communication and teamwork and how this helps get things accomplished much more efficiently. I have learned that hard work and attentiveness to detail is needed to see success, but that not everything can always get done with perfection and that is okay. I have practiced ingenuity in coming up with solutions for things like water leaks, plants in need of support and finding the best way to transport gravel. 
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In my eyes that is the greatest definition of an internship and I am proud and blessed to get to have that position.
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