What to Expect

These are not your typical business programs. Agribusiness students may find themselves in a lab studying soil samples or roaming the range after accounting class.

In the four years of Leslee Bell's agricultural economics degree at Texas A&M University, she took courses in everything from accounting to agricultural policy to computer applications.

To top it off, she had to complete four lab courses in subjects like botany, horticulture and range management.

"I think ... we are qualified and competent to work in any business," says Bell. She grew up in a small farming town. "It is just that we have the extra background [in] agriculture."

Labs only made up a small part of her class schedule. Lectures were far more common. Bell says that she had up to 17 hours of lectures a week. Assignments required about three to four hours of study each night.

In one course, Bell's team had to develop a marketing plan for a new or already existing product. Then, they had to present it to the professor and the rest of the class as if they were potential investors or board members.

They had exactly 15 minutes to make their presentation. If it was one minute longer or shorter, they would lose marks.

Group projects were also common in Rebecca Veenhuis's program. She graduated with a bachelor of science (B.Sc.) in agriculture, majoring in agricultural business. "Our profs loved the interaction and group efforts," she says.

Expect relatively small classes. "My classes were quite small," Veenhuis recalls.

"Once we got into classes that were business-specific, there were five to 10 students on average. But I had classes as big as 60 or so, and as small as two -- myself and another student. This was great!"

It personalized the learning process, she says. "If you had a question, the prof would stop and explain it to you. You didn't have to make a special appointment after class. On the other hand, they always knew when you weren't there!"

Be prepared to be a self-starter. "When you get into your upper-level courses, you need to do a lot of research to do the projects right," says Bell. "None of the professors are going to stand there and tell [you] exactly what they want [you] to do."