Elizabeth Karides

My summer with UME has been educational, rewarding, and fun. Every day during my internship was different which was one of my favorite parts. The variety of Extension and agricultural projects I was able to be involved in made this program exciting and vibrant. 

During this summer, I learned new things about myself and what I want my future career in agriculture to look like. Above all, my favorite part of my UME internship was the people I got to work with. Everyone was kind and helpful and never made me feel inferior or ashamed for asking questions about topics I had little prior knowledge of. My mentors Dr. Qianwen Lu and Dr. Xuan Wei, as well as other UME faculty I frequently interacted with including Dave Clement, Jon Traunfeld, and Sheena O'Donnell were wonderful to work with and made my internship experience very enjoyable.

Leaving this internship, I am excited to further explore the world of University Extension. There are so many projects, subject areas, and roles in Extension and during my ten weeks with UME, I only got to see snippet of it all. In the future, I will definitely consider trying for another internship with Extension- perhaps under a different University- to further explore all that this career field has to offer. Through this program, I have found I really like to give presentations, speak in front of cameras, and educate and engage audiences in person and virtually. Working in an agricultural field that allows me to have that educational and communicative aspect seems like it would be an ideal fit for me. 

Reflecting on my summer, I am so grateful to have landed such an awesome internship. Working and earning a paycheck is a privilege and is something not everybody is able to do. I really want to thank Andrea Franchini and Shannon Dill for being behind this UMD internship program and giving me the opportunity to work for Extension. 

As for the ninth week of my internship, my tasks included a lot of outside work including weeding near the Swiss chard fields, irrigating, and collecting data for a basil project at CMREC examining the plant disease downey mildew. 

During this week, I worked with Dr. Lu and fellow intern Veda Sanhai while removing weeds near the Swiss chard rows. To remove some of the larger and deeper weeds, I uprooted them with a shovel.

Image Credit: Veda Sanhai

Along with Veda, I measured and recorded the plant heights of several basil varieties for a project taking place at CMREC-Clarksville. The project examines several varieties of basil, like the one pictured here, to see which ones are most susceptible to downey mildew.

Image Credit: Elizabeth Karides

Next week, the interns will be presenting their final presentations covering their UME summer. I am excited to share my experience in this program and learn about what my fellow interns have been up to! Thanks for reading!