K-State College of Agriculture -- An Inside View

Informative Classes

Spring semester is flying by!! It seems like just last month I was celebrating Christmas with family and friends! Maybe it is the anticipation of spring coming or excitement of Ag Fest week around the corner. But the main reason why this semester has gone by so fast for me is due to the intense, applicable, and exciting classes I am enrolled in this semester.

One of the classes I enjoy this semester is Food and Agribusiness Management. This class takes all the information I have learned while at K-State in previous economic, financial, and management classes and rolls it into one large concept: company/business success. I have learned how to apply various concepts and ideas to various real life case studies like Sara Lee or McDonald's and evaluate where these companies have/have not been successful.

Two other classes that I am taking which are preparing me for the work force are Agriculture Law and Taxation. In the Ag. Law class I am learning the different aspects of civil, criminal, and regulatory law and how they apply to the agriculture industry. In my Taxation class I am learning all about the taxation process, regulations, codes, and various forms. Although these classes are more intense, I am enjoying them because I know what I am learning now, I can apply to a future job when I am helping farmers, ranchers, or business leaders succeed in their industry.

A New (Crazy) Semester!

Well, I have been absent for a while, and I apologize.  Studying for finals took up most of my time the last few weeks of the fall semester, and I was also trying to keep warm.  In case you didn't hear, Manhattan was hit hard by the ice storm, and many students lost power.  My roommate and I were out of power for the entire finals week.  I told my parents I studied by candle light, but in reality I went to the library.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This semester is going to be very busy for me.  I am taking several hard classes including Statistics II, Calculus I, and Physics I.  All require weekly homework and I'm assuming it will take some time and thinking to get that done.  Along with those courses I am taking Fundamentals of Food Processing and a course I like to call Italy!  I will be traveling on a 10 day study abroad trip to Italy over Spring Break and I cannot wait!

Taking 17 hours might seem somewhat overwelming but that is just the beginning for me.  As I wrote earlier, I am helping plan the All-University Open House.  I also am going to be starting my honors project for the College of Agriculture this semester.  Dr. Kelly Getty will be supervising me, and I will be working with a distance education graduate student on this project.  We will be working with beef jerky and testing how effective a company's packaging procedures are in killing Listeria Monocytogenes.  It should be very interesting, and really pertains to my interest in food safety.

Needless to say, this semester is going to be very busy!  But I hope that you can also see that the opportunities to get involved and expand your horizons are endless at K-State.  I will keep you posted on how the research is coming, and post some pictures of Italy in the coming months!

K-State Proud,

Tyler 

Class Sizes

Many people just starting K-State think all of their classes will be huge because there are so many students enrolled at K-State.  There are some bigger classes, mainly general education classes that everyone has to take such as sociology, psychology, expository writing, macroeconomics, etc.  While you might not get as much one-on-one attention in these bigger classes, the professors are usually more than willing to meet with you outside of class to clarify anything you might not understand.  The glory of those classes, though, is that a good majority of the time, you are going to have multiple choice tests and quizzes.  Not many professors are willing to take on the task of grading 150 essay tests!

While you will have to take some of those courses with larger class sizes, 70 percent of the classes here at K-State have fewer than 30 students.  In fact, the average class size is 23 students.  This is especially true when you start taking the courses that are more specific to your major.  I am currently taking macroeconomics, a university general education course, and that is a fairly large course.  However, my other 4 classes, which are more specific to my major, are much smaller ranging from 25 to 50 students.  And many classes have caps on how large then can get.  For example, freshman English classes are capped at 22 students, speech classes are limited to 23, foreign language classes have no more than 24, and introductory chemistry labs and design studios are capped at 18 students. 

So, don’t get discouraged in your first few semesters when you have larger classes; they will get smaller as you go along and the classes get more specialized. 

-Morgan