Brooke Knauss getting the perfect shot for the social media pages she ran this summer with the Maryland 4-H Office in College Park.
Armed with a camera a laptop, Brooke Knauss was at the ready all summer getting the perfect shot with the Maryland 4-H Office in College Park, Maryland. Knauss is a second-year student in the Institute of Applied Agriculture at the University of Maryland and spent her summer interning with 4-H mainly running their social media and blog accounts. She is currently majoring in Agricultural Communication and Leadership.
Knauss was perfect for this internship. “I did 4-H for 10 years growing up, so I always wanted to see what extension specifically looked like,” said Knauss. From interning with 4-H, she learned that she enjoys extension work and communication which gave her an insight to her future career goals. What surprised her the most was that the College Park office didn’t do as much communicating with the county offices as she thought, but they planned more large-scale events.
One of Knauss’ favorite parts of the job this summer was planning and running the social media pages for the office and also being a large help in running an on-campus summer camp for kids looking to go into different careers 4-H prepares them for. She was attended a conference and the Maryland State Fair on behalf of 4-H. On a day-to-day basis, her job focused specifically on the social media, and she found herself editing pictures, creating comments and captions, and preparing blog posts for the office. All of these experiences combined to develop Knauss’ project management and organization skills. Her main take-aways from this job though, were learning about branding a company through social media and marketing.
Knauss believes this experience will benefit her future job selection and additional internships she pursues. She plans to eventually go into extension work and someday leading a 4-H club. But, she says she may look into working with the Department of Natural Resources.
