UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- For most high school students, the recent summer is a distant memory to be revived only for writing assignments. But six Philadelphia and Pittsburgh students returned to high school with expanded career perspectives and greater maturity, thanks to a summer program offered by Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

The Minority Student Apprenticeships in Agriculture (MSAA) program is a four-week residential experience held at Penn State's University Park campus to give hands-on experiences in scientific research applied to agriculture. Outstanding high school juniors are nominated for the free program, which offers pre-college academic and career counseling with emphasis on opportunities in agriculture.

Program director Catherine Lyons, assistant to the dean for minority affairs, explains that the program exposes teens to lucrative career possibilities even as it challenges them with the demands of college life.

"Many young people -- especially those from urban settings -- see only the 'cows-and-plows' options of agriculture, so they miss some possibilities that could match their strengths and interest areas," she says. "The MSAA program offers the students an excellent opportunity to practice their science. It helps them to visualize themselves in careers that have high placement rates and great job security.

"At the same time, they change their surroundings, get to experience a non-urban campus setting, and are coaxed into maturing by the demands of college life. Mom's not there to get you up in the morning and no one stands over you to make you do your work. You have long-range deadlines and expectations -- just like the working world does. They get the chance to respond as grown-ups."

Students are apprenticed to faculty researchers in everything from horticulture and food science to genetics and service leadership -- far from the outdated images many have of agriculture. They participate in ongoing research, receive a stipend for their work and conclude the four weeks with a public presentation of their findings.

The program targets ethnic and cultural populations that are under-represented in the agricultural sciences. John Floros, professor and head of the department of food science, says his department participated because of a strong belief in efforts to develop diversity in the agricultural sciences student population.

"I'm a strong believer that our students should reflect the population of the state and nation, and we have made special efforts to participate in many of these programs," Floros says. "Also, we have initiated an extensive recruiting process to increase our student numbers. We have a lot of demand for our graduates -- we have nearly 100 percent placement -- and we want to get as many students as we can in our program."

Nicole Webster, assistant professor of agricultural and extension education, says working with the students was important for her because, as a minority graduate student, she saw the importance of being mentored, and she was happy to reciprocate with Joyniqua West, a senior at Simon Gratz High School.

"It was wonderful," Webster says. "Joyniqua was fun to work with, she was creative and she seems very excited -- she took everything in like a sponge. We tend to think of agriculture in the more traditional sense of plants and animals. This gives students and their parents access to another side of agriculture, and the different types of research done in the college."

Steven Lindsay came to the program from Pittsburgh's Westinghouse High School with an interest in psychiatry and no agricultural background. He gained an interest in bioengineering and confidence in his ability to handle college life away from home.

"Agriculture wasn't in the forefront of my mind, but after staying here for four weeks, getting to know the different departments and getting used to the place, I'd say I've grown and matured," Lindsay says. "Now I like bioengineering and biochemistry." Steve's mother, Jamie Jordan, didn't know anything about Penn State, but wanted her son to have the professional experience. Greater confidence and self-reliance made him almost a different young man than the one she'd driven to the sylvan central Pennsylvania campus, she says.

"We hadn't even gotten back home yet, and he'd called the house already, homesick," Jordan says of her son's arrival. "But by the end of the program, when he was up before the audience presenting his research, I could see that he's more mature and has more confidence in himself."

Jesse Leriche, of Philadelphia's Abraham Lincoln High School, also gained maturity through the program, says school counselor Walter Kennedy. Jesse was already familiar with Penn State through his brother, Jude, a junior business major. So the apprenticeship let him explore the university's academics while providing long-term benefits.

"It was a nice trial run living with other students in a college environment, having some independence and doing academic work," Kennedy says. "It will definitely help focus him on applying to other schools, getting his grades together and preparing for the SATs. He gets a sense of college as a real process, and not a small endeavor. Now it's something HE wants to do."

"I've been trying to get him in here so I was happy that he decided to get the experience," says Jesse's brother, Jude. "I did high school summer programs, so I knew that getting him out of the neighborhood would help him like it did me. I didn't point him in the direction of Penn State, but I guess he saw that I was doing this so he could get into it, too -- looking up to his big brother a little bit."

For more information on the apprenticeship program, contact Lyons at 814-865-7521.

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EDITORS: Contact Catherine Lyons at 814-865-7521 or by e-mail at cxl4@psu.edu.

Gary Abdullah Office 814-863-2708 FAX 814-863-9877