Bethany Proctor on placement

Bethany Proctor began her time at Harper Adams on a foundation degree before upgrading to a four-year honours degree in Agriculture with Crop Management. This meant that she went on work placement during her second year, returning for a further two years of study.

Beth spent that year as a trials assistant with the agro-chemical company, Agrovista. Her role included helping to organise and set up different trials, spraying trial plots and assessing for weeds and diseases to see which treatments worked best. She also got involved with processing assessment data, and photographing trials for demonstrations and booklets.

“It gave me the chance to develop new skills and business contacts,” says the 21-year-old. “It has enabled me to gain a year’s work experience and allowed me to confirm my career plans and experience certain aspects of this career. I was also able to attend internal BASIS training with the trainee agronomists and find out what knowledge base I would need to pass BASIS.”

So why did Beth, from Driffield, choose to study at Harper Adams? “It is an industry-wide recognised university offering a placement year to gain experience. It has a friendly country feel, and academic and support staff that are friendly, knowledgeable, know their subject and always will try and help with your problems if you ask. I like the mixture of lectures and applied practical work on my course.”

Like most Harper Adams students Beth has enjoyed an epic social life! “My favourite times at Harper Adams so far have been the balls and nights outs - I have some amazing memories especially of the summer balls. Great days out paintballing with friends and shopping in various Shropshire towns, not to mention brilliant laughs with my housemates. These are some of the best years of my life. You make friends for life here – people who will always look out for you.”

Beth is also a member of the university netball and fencing clubs and earns extra money working as a student ambassador. She has also completed her professional PA1, PA2 and telehandler courses, all on the Harper Adams campus and offered at a heavily discounted rate for students.