City Students embrace the opportunities in Bachelor of Agriculture degrees
10/1/2018
For Georgia Osborne, like many inner-city kids, Agriculture was never on the radar as a study option after high school. The 20-year-old had her sights on something in the humanities. An all-round student she applied for a Bachelor of Arts/Science but put Bachelor of Ag as a second preference at her Mums prompting “my Dad had studied it at the University of Sydney and really enjoyed it,” she said.
For Georgia Osborne, like many inner-city kids, Agriculture was never on the radar as a study option after high school.The 20-year-old had her sights on something in the humanities. An all-round student she applied for a Bachelor of Arts/Science but put Bachelor of Ag as a second preference at her Mums prompting “my Dad had studied it at the University of Sydney and really enjoyed it,” she said.
By the time she was accepted into Arts/Sciences at Monash University however she had her heart set on the Agriculture course.
“I remember going to an open day and seeing the stats for how many graduate jobs there were in agriculture,” she said.
In fact the estimate provided by the National Farmers Federation puts the number of available jobs at 2.5 for every graduate of the Bachelor of Agriculture in 2016.
This is backed by a report on demand in the Agricultural Science sector that stated there are 15% more positions than graduates to fill them.
Georgia is not the only city kid catching on to the opportunities, however. The Good Universities Guide reports that the uptake of Bachelor Degrees in Agriculture is split 50/50 between students with a city vs rural background.
In fact, many of the city graduates will have opportunities to pursue Ag based careers without having to leave the city. As the sector becomes more hi-tech, more of the advances that will shape the future of Ag in Australia will be coming from the labs, further highlighting the importance of graduate degrees.
This is all great news for Georgia who has chosen to major in plants and soil science in a bid to start her career as an agronomist when she graduates next year.
“I think people think that ag is just working on the land or driving a tractor,” she said.
“But you can do pretty much any job within the field of ag. There are so many applications for it.”
Georgia was able to get her hands dirty for a semester at Melbourne University’s Dookie agricultural campus. She was excited to apply her learning to a real-world environment.
Georgia encourages all students to consider Ag and be aware that it’s so much more than just working the land and that you don’t need a farming background. The advantages extend to campus life with the close-knit community of the smaller faculties.
