Summer 2013... NACUFS Intern Style!: The Last Hoorah in Wyoming!

Hello all! Sorry it's been a while! After my last week in Wyoming my boyfriend had flown out and we made a road trip to Michigan to start our vacation! So it's been a few couple of days with lots of driving, packing, unpacking, and the best, sunbathing! My last week was one to remember and I will admit I will always have a spot in my heart for this school out west. I will be thinking of them and their students once winter rolls around.

Monday, the gang hoped in the car and headed down to Colorado State University to meet with Ben Marks, the former NACUFS director at University of Wyoming. We had a tour of the campus and got to sit down with Ben. We toured the bakery, which had a gluten free area! We also toured the one of the main dining halls, one of their retail locations, and another dining hall. It was really cool to compare and contrast the two schools and it was encouraging to see that directors from other universities don't compete with each other but help each other out. I was impressed their gluten free dining stations in each dining hall that offered a gluten free refrigerator.

Tuesday we met with the marketing department and learned how they were involved in dining services. The summer is their time to plan and organize marketing materials to use throughout the school year. They also look at what things could be not used and what they could play up. We also finished editing our nutritional tour of Washakie video with the help of one of the marketing interns.

Wednesday was our much anticipated tour to the meat science lab. Needless to say I wasn't very excited. I went with my courage and a strong stomach and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I learned a lot there and it helped to know that they take many precautions in the lab and they try to treat the animals as humanly as possible. Emily has much more to say about this than me but none the less it was a good learning experience.

Thursday was our sustainability day! We met with Amy in the morning to discuss and go over what the campus does for sustainability. We even got to help write an SOP (standard operating procedure) for the use of reusable containers for the RA staff. It was a bit of a challenge at first but we got it sorted out. The rest of the afternoon we met with ACRES farm staff to learn more about the farm and took a little tour. We then headed to the farmers market to help the crew and see how their process works. We weren't much help but it was cool to see the other side of things at the farmers market. It was also convenient since the girls and I had planned to go to the farmers market anyway and then go get a farewell dinner at Sweet Melissa's.

Friday!!! Our last day! I can't help but say I was a little excited for this day. I was just so excited to see friends and family! But we got to test our sandwiches for The Gardens and it was quite a success. We all had two sandwiches each to make and test. After all our testing we met up with the rest of the staff to celebrate our last day with a cake Deb made. It was delicious! I couldn't have thought of a better way to enjoy my last day of the internship seeing mostly everyone who has a played a role during the internship. We did our final evaluations and said farewell. It's been fun, new, and I learned a lot more about what I picture myself doing in the future.