I come from a French family farm close to Le Mans, and in 2018-2019 after my Ag study I spent 18 months in US, I was supposed to stay only for 8 months. This only show how this experience was rich and enjoyable for me.
I spent 8 months on a Minnesotan farm in a wonderful MAST family. They showed me their culture, their way to live, to farm. They really welcomed me and I never felt alone even if I was far from home. I spent a really good time working with them in fields and with sheep, but also sharing with them their family time at their kids school and during Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess that’s the way how this internship went that gave me the wish to stay a few more months.
So I did the spring semester 2019 at U of M, where I had great time with all the trainees from the Mast program from all over the world and the mast office. I had the opportunity to see what the life of an American student was at the Uni, in sport and party life.
This was really rich and uncommon.
At the end of the semester, I worked for an harvest crew, I crossed US from Texas to Montana on a combine! My eyes and my brain are still full of all this landscape I could see during this trip! I met a lot of young people in this crew, I was a bit like an alien for them coming from Europe but we spent such great time working hard and partying together.
Nowadays I'm a recent farmer, every day I think of my experience with the MAST and how great full it was! I think this experience give me hindsight and increased my point of view! However every time I see a young fellas who think to go abroad, I tell him to go, it can be scary but totally worth it
Alex Caillaux from France MAST 2018-2019