Ah, dorm life. Nonstop socializing and Internet access. Stereos that could blast a hole through a bank vault door. Getting up at 4:30 a.m. to feed hundreds of farm animals.

Wait a minute...was that mentioned in my recruiting brochure? Well, no—but every semester more than 30 male and female undergraduate students live in dorm rooms on the college’s animal facilities in exchange for about five hours of work per week.

During her two years working the early shift at the Penn State Dairy Research and Education Center, Kelly Hutchins, a senior from Ridgway, learned the value of time management. At right, she hits the books late at night in the dorms a few yards from the barns. In the morning, milking chores energize Hutchins for the rest of her day.

Admittedly, as a part-time job for students, farm work is a little harder than stocking shelves or waiting tables. Still, working with horses, hens, hogs, heifers, and lambs in the great outdoors is more interesting to put on a résumé. Also, the farms’ live-in student workers save the cost of a dorm room or apartment. Students are expected to work a minimum of five hours a week to cover the cost of their room and board and are paid $5.50 per hour for any work time beyond that. “The average check turns out to be around $60 or $70 a week,” says Bob Lucas, a senior from Avella, Washington County, majoring in mechanical engineering. Lucas lives and works at the beef center. “I enjoy working out there. It gets you away from worrying about school, which can be a great help sometimes.”

Any Penn State undergraduate student can work and live in the dorms on the livestock farms. Some animal operations are more work-intensive than others, but few students will find less expensive living quarters in State College. Most of the dorms are integrated into the building complexes. A separate house near the dairy barns, dubbed the “Pink Palace” for its pastel paint job, is home to several female student workers. The house occupants usually work either at the horse barn, the dairy complex, or the deer pens.

Agricultural experience helps, but it isn’t a prerequisite for employment. “Last year, I hired a girl from Boston who didn’t know a cow from a horse, and she turned out to be one of my best workers,” says dairy manager Mark Amsler. To apply, students call each facility manager and put their names on a waiting list.

The farm dorms are not as plush as West Halls, but the students are not bedding down on straw in an unheated barn. However, some dorms offer a more spartan experience than others. The beef and sheep facility has one phone jack for six male students and another jack for four female students—a hardship in the age of the personal computer. Dick Kuzemchak, who has worked as sheep unit manager for almost 30 years, was part of the first group of student workers to live in the beef and sheep dorms when they were built in the late 1960s. He says it hasn’t changed much since he lived there. The beef, sheep, and swine dorms do not have cooking facilities, either—a major inconvenience when you are far away from a dining hall or burger palace.

The dairy complex dorms have full kitchen facilities, new carpeting, and new furniture. Students work a sign-up schedule that can include 4:30 a.m. milkings, midnight animal checks, or an afternoon feeding. They cover weekend and holiday milking as well as other duties. “I was terrible when I started,” admits Kelly Hutchins, a senior majoring in animal science from Ridgway, Elk County, who had no previous farm experience. “By the time you get the hang of it, you’re ready to graduate. But working there has opened so many doors for me that it has completely changed the direction of my life.”

Students supply their own work clothes: coveralls, boots, gloves, and coats. The work is physical, though some barns are harder than others. The swine barn workers, for instance, must scrape pig manure every morning using shovels, a task that would be automated on most farms. “We usually jump out of bed into our work clothes and do chores—then take a shower,” says Josey Grimm, a senior majoring in animal science from Smithfield, Fayette County. “The odors in the swine barn stick with you. I made the mistake of wearing my street clothes into the hog facility once. I went to class later, and sat next to a very pretty girl. She got up and moved across the room. Also, when my parents or friends come to see me, they tend to honk the horn and wait for me to come down rather than getting out of the car.”

Students must maintain a 2.0 average to work at the farms. Hutchins, who has lived in the dairy dorms for two years, says students must be expert time managers to balance studies, work, and leisure time. Still, working and living with other students in close proximity to farm animals instills an intense camaraderie that she finds exhilarating. “Out here, it’s totally relaxed and everyone has mutual respect for one another,” Hutchins says. “There were times when I felt like quitting school, and my work out here made me not want to leave. Working with the students, the managers, and the farm technicians was like finding another family.”

Like a real family, ties eventually must be broken, but student workers who have gone into the working world have found their farm experience to be relevant. “Working and living with five or six guys can be challenging, but it teaches you how to handle yourself in the workplace,” says Ryan Mattocks, consulting nutritionist for Cochranton Cooperative Association in Cochranton, Crawford County. Mattocks, who graduated in 1995, previously worked for Upjohn Pharmaceutical Corp. as a sales representative before moving to his present position. He gained a sense of independence working at the sheep facility. “Sometimes the supervisor might have gone home, or directions from a researcher were not very clear and we had to make decisions for ourselves,” he says.

Lu-Ann Kubicar, an animal health technician for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service who lived at the dairy complex from 1985 to 1986, says her years working with the milking herd broadened her experience. Kubicar, who monitors livestock farms and businesses throughout southeastern Pennsylvania from her home and office in Peque, Lancaster County, finds her student experience helps her to communicate better with farmers. “As a health official, many times I see farmers when they are under a great deal of stress,” she says, “so it’s critical that I know what I am talking about and can relate to a producer’s problems.”

Although many of the student farm workers say it is initially hard to balance work hours with school and studying, most admit that the experience focused their learning in ways they had not anticipated. “This job taught me about sacrifice and commitment,” Grimm says. “I’ve missed Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners because I had to work here, but you realize when you take on a job that you have to do certain things to keep it.”

—John Wall