DUSRC Intern, Connor Biswell (center), Project 2/3 Trainee Guru Ulaganathan (left), and Internship Coordinator Tenley Weil (right), at Briggs Avenue Community Garden service day.
Image credit: Megan Hoert Hughes
On Friday, July 11th, I joined my fellow Superfund interns for a tour of the Research Triangle Park (RTP) campus of Syngenta. We were there with the 21st Century Environmental Health Scholars from UNC and NCCU. Going into it, I didn’t really have any expectations of what Syngenta meant. Most research that I had done on the biotech company happened in the morning, right before we went on tour!
While there, we started off the day with a couple of talks by some Syngenta engineers about their professional journeys, including their thoughts on graduate school, and the field of toxicology as a whole. I was surprised by the sheer number of different pathways we heard about. Sure, you had some of the Bio-Chemists or Environmental Engineers that you would expect at a company like this. But, there were also chemists, botanists, psychology majors, higher education master’s students, and many others. We toured their fantastic greenhouse and saw their offices and food court. I was most astounded by the community they seemed to have, from floor vs. floor games, to random people at lunch out eating together. It was just heartwarming that something like this could exist in the industry, after spending time in the Duke bubble, where departments seem to be very siloed.
It was hard to believe that Syngenta is a company with 30,000+ employees and that they have built such a strong organization in RTP. I grew up on a farm back in Kansas, and I know the benefits of being a “people person” when it comes to connecting with farmers. I was worried at first about how Syngenta would communicate with farmers and get their products to farmers who may not know what a “trait” or an “event” means in the Syngenta vernacular. My trepidations were swiftly put to the side when I saw how hospitable and nice all of the employees are. I guess I was truly pleased to see how much care this company had for the farmers they are serving, especially as some of those farmers are my own family.
If I had three main takeaways from the Syngenta trip and its impacts on my future career path they would be as follows. First, there are so many options, even in the same company. Some roles require specific skills or classes, but if that doesn’t fit my history, it doesn’t mean the whole company isn’t for me. Second, I will need a company that can support my well being as well as my professional self. This is something that may not be as important to others, but for me it is. Finally, we tend to enjoy the things we know the most about, and that is true when it comes to professions too. I need to make sure that I not only know a field, but I enjoy it too.