As an NCSU College of Agricultural and Life Sciences student, the recent budget cuts have certainly not gone unnoticed. I’ve felt reverberations of the recent funding adjustments throughout all extracurricular activities in which I am involved.
I got my first real idea of the seriousness of the situation as I talked with my CALS Ambassador advisor last fall. She informed our team that due to lack of funding, we will be cutting back everywhere from what activities we plan for visitation days, to how many paperclips can be used at our weekly meetings.
This year, our Outreach Advisor team is also branching out to incorporate several committees in our team, an endeavor that unfortunately coincided with the effects of major budget adjustments.
As the group leader of our fledgling Service Committee, I can personally attest to the fact that our committee had difficulty with creating projects in which we could reach out to the community, but with zero to limited funding to back the projects.
I am also personally involved is undergraduate research, and since the summer before my freshman year, I have been involved in an on-campus poultry genomics lab.
The experience all began with an HHMI Rise Summer Research Internship, and it has since been invaluable in allowing me to make the most of my years as an NCSU undergraduate.
I fear that programs like the Rise Program, as well as all other undergraduate research awards, will be experiencing some of the largest budget cuts in the coming year, which will then deny many incoming undergrads the same priceless experience I was fortunate enough to have.
Graduate programs are also suffering intensely from budget cuts. According to another peer working in an undergraduate research lab, there is a great amount of anxiety that researchers and professors will not have enough funding to hire an adequate number graduates in the coming academic year.
Though I am personally pursuing a career in veterinary medicine and hope to gain admission to the vet school within the next couple years, many of my peers in animal science are interested in going to graduate school instead, making funding restrictions a topic of real concern for them.
The pre-veterinary club is another extracurricular in which I am heavily involved. On a semester basis, we award one service organization a $500 donation. We also donate $100 each fall to the Service N.C. State project, as well as a $100 scholarship to one of our most scholastically competitive active club members. As a professional club, we are largely responsible for raising whatever funding is necessary for the year. However, we are also dependent on an annual stipend from the Agri-Life Council. Our club’s budget proposal is due within the next month, and officers are already preparing to receive a smaller budget than that which we received just a year ago.
Though it may take some groups, such as student clubs, longer to feel the real impact than other areas, such as admissions and undergraduate research, I believe it is safe to assume that all aspects of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will feel the effects nonetheless.
