by Sue Mitrovich

Vive la France!
Matt Subler, an ASAE member and ‘02 agricultural systems management (ASM) graduate of Purdue University, grew up on a small Indiana cattle farm and as a high school student was active in FFA and 4-H. Because his older brother was enrolled at nearby Purdue, he made many campus visits and gained an appreciation for the educational opportunities available there.
     Subler enrolled and, toward the end of his freshman year, got involved in biological and agricultural engineering clubs, making friends with those in the ASM program. Faculty members, who became mentors, recommended internships but also stressed the importance of learning abroad.
     On their advice, Subler applied for a passport and a program in France offered through a cooperative partnership with Kansas and Illinois state schools and Purdue.
     “I spent the summer of 2001 in France and studied at École Superior d’Agricultur Purpan (Purpan or ESAP for short); it is an agricultural college in Toulouse. I worked at a winery – Chateau de Lascaux in Vacquires, a small town near Montpellier. Migrants from Morocco (and a curious American like myself) came to help with the impending harvest. I pruned, worked with trellises, and learned a lot about blends from the master winemaker in the laboratory.

Matt Subler pruned grape vines near Vacquires, France as an exchange student on an agricultural work/study program.

     “After an internship in Lone Tree, Iowa with Syngenta Seeds, it was interesting to see the agronomy principles I had learned applied in reverse in France. In corn production with hybrid seeds, nutrients are built; in grapes, the nutrients are depleted.
     “I would recommend an experience like this for anyone. It was important for me to see and begin to understand how people in a different culture live and think. It truly is a broadening experience. I discovered how similar we are to the French, and I came away with a more tolerant view of their opinions on political policies and agricultural issues.”
     Subler, past president of Alpha Mu – the honor society that promotes excellence in ASM – offers sage advice: “Don’t close yourself in – have goals, but don’t be afraid to look around. Keep your eyes open, and don’t live to regret missed opportunities. The industry might pigeon-hole you as an ag person, but an ag education enables you to do a number of jobs in a number of different industries. You have to sell yourself and your degree to find your niche, and an experience abroad may be the one selling point that gets you through the door.”

Great Wall — Great Experience
     Scott Strickland, a junior in ASM at Purdue, studied in China during the last Maymester – an interim month of “stand-alone study” on the Purdue academic calendar. He returned stateside with a world-class view of the vast variety of agricultural levels of advancement in foreign lands and the desire to see more of agricultual practices around the globe.
     “Nineteen students, professor-led, visited three different universities in three very diverse settings: a large academic center in Bejing, China’s capital; a smaller seat of learning in Hongzhou, a tourist town noted for its provincial and historic landmarks; and a hustle-bustle college community in Shanghai, a metropolitan mecca which reminded me of New York City,” Strickland recounts.

Scott Strickland, an ASAE member, posed with a few young soldiers he met while on the Great Wall of China just outside of Beijing.

     “The month in China gave me a eyes-open perspective. It was a big-time compare-and-contrast experience as an American from a farm family and agricultural background. There isn’t a lot of mechanism throughout China. Big equipment isn’t part of their world. Chinese farmers depend on manpower in the truest sense. We saw 18-horsepower tractors here and there, but the sight of oxen plugging along in the rice paddies was very common.
     “For the amount of money paid, an agricultural experience abroad is invaluable – and everything is taken care of: advance planning, transportation, lodging, food, field trips, and sightseeing excursions. It’s the way to travel and really live-and-learn.”
     Over 6 feet in height, Strickland is hooked on toting a suitcase whenever and wherever possible. “Although the beds in China were a little small for someone like me,” he says with a laugh, “I would go back in a snap. I made so many friends, developed such close bonds … you wouldn’t think that was possible given the cultural differences.
     “My most striking visual memory is of the Great Wall. It is an awesome, almost indescribable sight. I went away thinking these people are historically incredible – gifted, talented, full of life with a reverence for the land. They are a world and a culture set apart, but yet the same as us in so many ways.”

Wales: Somewhere in Time
     Tim Kilmer, a junior ASM major, spent a spring semester abroad, but not without hesitation. Describing where he is currently enrolled as “the best all-American ag school in the world,” Kilmer left Purdue for the University of Wales of Aberystwyth with much skepticism and the urging of his professors. “Could any learning experience measure up to academia in Lafayette, Ind.?” he wondered.
     After landing at Gatwick Airport, Kilmer stood dazed and alone among a deplaned crowd muttering to himself, “I can’t believe I did this.” He fumbled to find his belongings – two large suitcases roped haphazardly together, small grip, bulging backpack – and his way to the tube, the British underground rail which would take him to the overland rail and the hard-to-pronounce town in Wales.
     “Aberystwyth, on the far coast, was the end of the road. The train tracks literally stopped there. When the train pulled in, I thought I had stepped back in time 50 years or more. A university town of about 8,000 – half of the population students, – Aberystwyth is in a rural setting. We think of the rural landscape in the United States as quite mechanized and modern, even if it is isolated from metropolitan sprawl. This was rural in the extreme. I walked a mile to campus each day from my flat in town, past hedges and fields where tremlining and moldboard plowing is still common practice. Most machinery is only 3.3 meters wide, to fit the narrow Welsh paths and roadways.

Tim Kilmer, who studied in Wales, drew landscapes and made good use of his camera while abroad. Above, the coastline of the Irish Sea in downtown Aberystwyth is captured on film and memory forever.

     “I was enrolled in rural studies, the closest thing to ASM, with only three or four people in each class. I took Welsh farm mechanization and materials and machines, along with electives in my interest areas, drawing and vehicle maintenance. It was totally different – much hands-on emphasis. I learned everything from calibrating a drill and handling a forklift to the British codes, a very different set of standards, for storing and handling fertilizer.
     “If someone handed me an airline ticket and told me my plane leaves in a hour to repeat the same experience, I’d go with just the clothes on my back and buy new when I got there! I’m making my way through school with part-time jobs, but I know from experience that great scholarships are available for studying abroad. I look back on those four months in Europe as the highlight of my college career – perhaps my life to date.
     “One acquires a world view in agriculture. Horizons broaden. My fears have decreased dramatically, and my independence now soars. I’d actually like to live in Europe. I saw other countries besides Wales during days of school vacation; I’d like to go back and see even more! And my big dream is to work abroad for an American ag-related company.”