12 minute read
The Paths Less Traveled
TSU graduates take Agricultural Science degrees in differing directions with joy and success
By Charlie Morrison
The essence of a Tennessee State University degree in Agriculture Science is a long hallway lined with doors. When opened, each respective door opens onto a path, one of any number of paths students can follow into their future. Some doors lead to careers in agriculture proper, government agencies, private firms... Others lead to futures in the hard sciences outside of the realm of agriculture... Still others take students outside of the world of STEM entirely... Doors leading to doors.
A degree in Agricultural Science is a path to vastly different destinations. To prove that point, we introduce you to some of our recent graduates excelling in their respective fields as professionals.
The Science Path
Alexis Dingle – Research Scientist at Agragene
The first and most obvious thing a student who graduates from TSU with a degree in Agricultural Science can do is to stay in the world of hard science. Students at the College of Agriculture at TSU train to be hard scientists, and while not everyone spends large amounts of time in their formative years in the laboratory, others do, and they thrive, both during and after their undergraduate years. One such student is 2019 graduate Alexius Dingle, now Dr. Alexius Dingle, a recent graduate of the molecular biology and genetics Ph.D. program at Texas A&M University now working as a research scientist at biotechnology company Agragene, Inc.
Dingle lept many a hurdle in acquiring her doctoral degree, not least of which was the Covid-19 pandemic, which landed in Texas during her second semester. The pandemic lockdown that ensued cost her time in the lab and extended her stay at A&M, but now that’s she’s defended her dissertation, received her doctoral degree and entered the workforce, she can take time to reflect on the past decade she spent in and out of the lab.
“The process of getting the degree was the hardest thing I’ve ever pursued in my life. It’s been six arduous years of doing things in the lab that don’t always work. I think that makes getting a Ph.D. so unique,” said Dingle in an interview with AgLink. “With a Ph.D. you have to figure things out and a lot of it hasn’t been done before.”
Of her time at TSU, during which she focused on biotechnology, Dingle has fond memories. Not only was her time here marked by her 4.0 G.P.A., but also her participation in the TSU chapter of Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS), the friends she made, and more. But it was her time working the science in the lab here at TSU that truly set Dingle up for success in her doctoral work.
“My experience at TSU was super-helpful. I appreciate the types of opportunities we have to do research at the College of Agriculture,” she said. “Not every student goes to a university where they’re fortunate to have research opportunities available like they were available to me, and also to be paid for those opportunities.”
Alexius Dingle graduated from TSU in 2019.
2019 TSU Agricultural Sciences graduate Alexius Dingle is treading the science path after her decorated career on campus here in Nashville. She’s currently plying her trade in the lab at Agragene, Inc., working in genetics.
“For me, I knew nothing about research going into my freshman year. It was Associate Dean of Academics and Land-grant Programs Dr. De’Etra Young who suggested that I do research and told me I’d get paid. Once I started to do research and got into the thick of it, I realized ‘wow, I really like doing this,’” she continued.
With what is likely her last year as a student behind her, Dingle is now making good on all the work she put in at TSU and then later at Texas A&M. And while one never knows what the future will bring, Dr. Dingle has truly settled into science. Dingle can be sure of one thing however, whatever happens with her future, she’ll have earned it.
The Path of Pivots
Justin McKinnie – Senior Acquisition Analyst, Bolden Capital Group and President, McKinnie Real Estate Solutions
While some like Dingle follow the path further into the realm of science, others like fellow biotechnology student and 2018 graduate Justin McKinnie get their start in agriculture before pivoting. McKinnie, a Senior Acquisition Analyst at the Atlanta, GA-based Bolden Capital Group and the president of his own asset management firm McKinnie Real Estate Solutions, took his own unique path to success, but for him, it began in agriculture.
While some like Dingle follow the path further into the realm of science, others like fellow biotechnology student and 2018 graduate Justin McKinnie get their start in agriculture before pivoting. McKinnie, a Senior Acquisition Analyst at the Atlanta, GA-based Bolden Capital Group and the president of his own asset management firm McKinnie Real Estate Solutions, took his own unique path to success, but for him, it began in agriculture.
McKinnie’s first big moves following his May, 2018 graduation from TSU were firmly in the direction of agriculture. After he donned his cap and gown here in Nashville, McKinnie took off down to Orlando, where he joined the Walt Disney Company, for nine months serving as a biotechnology management intern. At Disney, McKinnie worked the science, preparing plant tissue cultures in the lab, and he also worked the people, leading interactive guest tours through the company’s greenhouses, labs and aquaculture facilities each day.
His next appointment, as a production management trainee at McCain Foods in Wisconsin, kept him in the world of science, however bit by bit McKinnie found himself gravitating to the business world corporate America introduced him to through McCain. By the time McKinnie landed his next big role, this time in Atlanta, he was officially a convert, exchanging the world of scientific data with that of finance and business.
That position, as a real estate analyst with Hope Community Capital, LLC, signified his transition from one thing he loved to another. It was a job that spurred on his entrepreneurial spirit, and led to him creating his own company, a point of pride for McKinnie.
“I got the opportunity to participate in a rotational program at McCain that pulled us into the realm of business operations. I got the chance to meet a lot of the executives and learn how the business operated from a high level,” he said to AgLink. “A lot of that exposure early on allowed me to sit in some rooms I probably shouldn’t have been sitting in as a guy who was one year and some change out of college. It was a big eye-opener and helped fuel that fire I had to be in business myself.”
McKinnie credits his time at TSU outside of the classroom, things like his participation in MANRRS, the time he spent networking, and skull sessions with Dr. Young for allowing him to learn the soft skills necessary to thrive in first in the world of agriculture and then in the world of business. “I put the things I learned at TSU outside of the classroom as the equivalent of what I learned in the classroom,” he said. “A lot of those things helped me learn how to sell myself and what the art of selling myself really was. Being able to be in front of companies and employers and understand what they’re looking for out of students who could ultimately turn into employees, those skills I learned outside the classroom at TSU.”
“At the end of the day however, studying and doing research, running numbers... it all correlates one to one to the world of business. It all requires the same level of analytical analysis.”
The Industry Path
Justus Watson – Sales Manager, Canadian National Railway Company
While some like McKinnie need to evolve in the professional world to find their niche, some find it straight away and stick with it, gaining valuable industry experience to build on. Such is the case with McKinnie’s friend at TSU, fellow 2018 Agricultural Science graduate Justus Watson.
Like McKinnie, Watson’s first position in the professional world kept him in the world of science but unlike his friend, Watson’s experience was during the summers between his sophomore year and his junior, and junior and senior years, when he took internships at first Dupont, and then the Hershey Company. After graduating, however, Watson’s path took him to the world of logistics that, while quasi-related to the agriculture industry, certainly represented a new direction.
Shortly after graduating Watson took a position with the Union Pacific Railroad Company, working out of their regional office in Omaha, NE. He committed to the organization, spending two years as a account representative before being promoted to the company’s Houston office to take a position as a sales manager.
After more than three years in that position, in October of last year, Watson brought his time at Union Pacific to a close by leaving the company to take a role with the Canadian National Railroad Company, also in sales management. By the time he left Union Pacific, he’d been there longer than he had at TSU.
“I owe a lot of my success to both Justin (McKinnie) and Dr. Young. Dr. Young was really a positive, guiding figure for both of us, but there was also a friendly competition between he and myself,”
said Watson. “Neither of us wanted to be the guy who didn’t produce, and we were engaged in constant work.”
Like his friend and colleague McKinnie, Watson leveraged his position with his company into a graduate degree. Whereas McKinnie ended up working for a Master of Science degree in commercial real estate, Watson opted for the traditional MBA, which he received from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
“Science teaches you how to think, how to think through solutions, how to think through problems, how to think through different scenarios so you know how to navigate those discussions, and perhaps more importantly what not to do, what not to think, what not to try,” said Watson.
“A big part of business now, especially in my role, is data. To be able to produce it, mine it, understand it, see trends, create models, create visualizations, and put them on slides to present and tell a story,” he continued.
“I was able to sell the railroad on the idea that I had transferrable skills even though I’d been in science, in agriculture, and come from biotechnology. I guess it worked out.”
The (Not So) Straight and Narrow Path
Kourtney Daniels – Food Safety and Quality Assurance Manager, Smithfield Foods
Somewhere in between the world of hard science occupied by Dingle and the business world represented by Watson is the world Smithfield Foods food safety and quality assurance manager Kourtney Daniels lives in. The 2017 TSU graduate (summa cum laude), like Dingle, took her talents to College Station, TX and Texas A&M continuing on with her education as an Aggie to get a master’s degree in food science.
Food and beverage giant Cargill plucked Daniels out of her graduate program directly, and she was able to transfer the hard science skills she’d learned both at A&M and TSU directly to the food manufacturing industry, where her knowledge and skill set had practical use. She spent over three-and-a-half years with Cargill and was twice been promoted.
Daniels joined Cargill at their Minnesota headquarters before being promoted and transferring to their Virginia facility for a role as an HACCP professional. She took on a
position as a food safety and regulatory superintendent here in Nashville, before ultimately joining Smithfield Foods in July.
“I’ve been very lucky and blessed that my career has been able to be an outcome of all the different opportunities I’ve had in both my undergraduate program at Tennessee State University and my graduate program at Texas A&M,” said Daniels in an interview with AgLink.
“I know for a lot of other people they’ve had to pivot, where their soft skills and the networks they created at TSU have given them other opportunities. I’m happy that while it’s not been a straight and narrow path, I started in agriculture, I’m still in ag, and I really don’t see a reason to leave ag any time soon.”
For Daniels, coming to a conclusion about what she’d study and then do was never the issue. It was all about how she’d get there. “Even before I started to look at careers my last year of high school, I literally picked my major. I knew I wanted to work in food, I love food, I love to cook, I watch food documentaries... I enjoyed doing that in high school and unlike a lot of people I had some really good science teachers,” she continued.
“Knowing about the actual industry that is food safety, quality, and regulatory, I had no idea. If you had told me I’d be doing what I’m doing my senior year of high school I would have said, ‘are you sure?’ I didn’t even know that was a thing. And I’m still learning.”
On her experience at TSU, Daniels has been able to reflect back with happiness on her experience. For her, TSU feels like it was just yesterday, that’s how busy she’s been since leaving.
“What feels like it happened yesterday has really been like a decade, it’s been a while since I’ve been there. Being part of a college and a community where the connections are so strong that I never feel like I’ve been away, that’s incredible.”
