Gabriella Sorg

I have grown up on my family’s dairy and diversified crop farm and been surrounded by agriculture my whole life. Dinner table conversation often revolved around the farm, many of my extracurricular organizations were agriculturally based, and family events were planned around the milking schedule. I loved growing up as part of the agricultural community and want it to be part of my future career. My plan right now is to begin graduate school in agricultural economics in the fall of 2018. I plan to have a strong focus on dairy economics.

My main purpose for attending graduate school is to gain knowledge and skills that will help me be an asset to the agricultural industry in my future career. I would like to combine my strengths and education with my passion for agriculture to hold a position where I can serve farmers and the industry. I grew up working as the fifth generation on my family’s dairy and crop farm. My farm background brought me to the University of Minnesota to study animal science and agricultural and food business management as an undergraduate. I appreciated having the two different majors to give me well rounded knowledge of the agricultural industry. My animal science major has helped me build a stronger foundation in on farm production agriculture while my business degree has helped me learn more about markets and business operations.

Graduate school was not really on my radar until I was encouraged to consider it by my agricultural business advisor my sophomore year. Even then, I was not convinced that a degree in economics was in my future. It took me until spring of my junior year to realize that studying agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota could be exactly what I had been looking for. I had always wanted a career path where I could combine my agricultural background, analytical strengths, and people skills. Now, graduate school in agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota seems like the perfect next step towards doing just that. Since deciding this is the route that I want to take, I have begun to prepare by working as a research assistant under Dr. Marin Bozic. I believe that the challenges and experiences of graduate school could help me reach more of my potential so that I may someday serve the agricultural industry as a more valuable employee.

I do not know the exact career I will want in the future. In fact, that is part of the reason I believe graduate school is a good fit for me. There are many career paths that I have not yet had the chance to experience. I want to pick the one where my skills can have the biggest impact. I have narrowed in on this program because I know it is somewhere I can use my strengths and also be involved in the agricultural industry. I know that my career path revolves around agriculture. That one fact is certain. I specifically have the most interest in the dairy industry as I grew up on a dairy farm and have been heavily involved in dairy related extracurricular events but have interests in other livestock species, crops, and agribusiness. I would like to study issues that affect management and policy in production agriculture. My ultimate goal of my research and career would be that my work would return benefits to farmers like my family. This could include teaching and educating others about economics and management or economic policies impacting agriculture.