Rebecca Goulding, Spence Agricultural Scholar 2024

I have now completed my first year at university. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year, I have met some brilliant friends and have enjoyed the independence that being at university has given me. 

The first couple of months of starting university were quite an adjustment, I had spent a couple of nights a week living at agricultural college, and was therefore quite used to being away from home, however being brought up on my family’s dairy farm I am used to always being extremely busy, which is not something I found myself being especially during the first couple of months. However, I found a part time job milking cows on a farm local to Harper Adams to keep me busy, found some friends to socialise with, and as the year has gone on I have had more assignments and revision to keep me occupied. 

I have been involved with the Agric’s Society this year. This is where I met some of my friends, it is a brilliant society full of like-minded people with the same interests and has been great for meeting friends, we have had talks from different speakers, socialised and held a dinner dance to celebrate the year. Me and some of the other members of the society also travelled down to London in November to join the farmer protests about the adjusted inheritance tax rules being brought in, whilst it was a very wet and cold day it was brilliant to be part of and the day had such a community feel to it with a lot of passion behind it. 

My studies have also kept me busy and I have found them to be extremely useful and thought provoking. I have especially enjoyed practical lessons on the university farm, being brought up on a family farm can sometimes leave you with a mindset that there is only one way to carry out a task and it has been great to hear other people’s perspectives and ideas. Agri-Food Supply Chains has been my favourite module this year, as part of this module we were split into groups of three to create a presentation comparing two different commodities, our group looked at milk and beef production which was really interesting and great to work on it as a team. 

Thanks to the Rochester Bridge Trust’s generous scholarship I was able to go on an Artificial Insemination Course, being able to artificially inseminate cows is a skill which many farmers and breeding companies are looking for and it will hopefully help me to find a placement for my third year! I have also been able to attend the Dairy Tech event which I haven’t been to previously. It was a brilliant day where I spoke to lots of companies and saw some of the new technology that is being developed within the dairy industry. I would definitely like to attend again next year!

I have now moved back home for the summer, my family is definitely making the most of me being back at home as summer is a busy time of year for us on the farm! We have just finished our 2nd cut of grass and have started cultivating and reseeding some of the farm.