By Zorian Edwards, Multimedia & Features Editor
Austin Brown, 2017 News Editor of The Panther Press, visited the Volume 17 staff last month to discuss how journalism impacted his current career and what aspects of journalism stuck with him.
During his time as a student journalist, Brown wrote a number of articles such as ‘Vermin vies for presidency’, and ‘Saegertown students shine at 100th Pa. Farm Show’ As a beginning journalist, he knew he had a lot to learn. He also wrote extensively about the budget process at PENNCREST school district.
At first, Brown sometimes doubted his writing and reporting skills. “I was thinking that I’m not good enough,” Brown said. “As I’ve gotten older I realize that I had imposter syndrome really bad. I feel that everyone has imposter syndrome, but, in my experience, I minimized my present value because I wasn’t at my end goal yet.”
Following his journalism career, Brown attended Penn State where he majored in animal science along with three minors. “One of the things I got from journalism is a lot of out-of-the-box thinking,” Brown said, “You learn to understand how people work and in doing that, I was able to use a lot of my interviewing skills.”
After his high school graduation, he met his current PI (Principal investigator) Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam through Twitter. Eenennaam is an extension specialist in Biotechnology and genetics in the Animal Science Department at UC Davis. She runs the Animal Biotechnology lab and is a renowned molecular geneticist who can be seen in the movie ‘Food Evolution’ with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.
“I work with a livestock geneticist and I love what they do,” Brown said. “My skill sets are not 100% there because it takes a lot of math skills that I don’t have yet. I’m more interested in the process of creating that animal.”
With this education, Brown plans to get into veterinary school to research and improve livestock reproduction. Once in a veterinary position, he plans to do embryo production, embryo transfers, breeding animals, and bringing early genetics from a lab or university setting into more commercial farmer-level breeding so they have the opportunity to utilize early genetics.
His advice to the staff was straightforward: “Be rigorously authentic & courageously accountable,” Brown said. “Pursue uncomfortable work and finish it. Surrender the outcomes of yesterday and bring a better version of you to the table today.”
