The Start Something College of Agriculture and Life Sciences program experimented in January with a new experiential program for Iowa State University students, Winternships (winter+internships). A Winternship is five-day work experience for ISU students in January, after the holidays but before Spring semester classes start. Students execute an innovative project for an agricultural entrepreneur at their place of work. Projects can range from desktop/office work to building projects, with the only request that they have an entrepreneurial/innovation element at their core and that the students can reasonably make progress with five days of hard work.

The goal of the Winternship program was to create unique and valuable experiences for the students in what will otherwise be underused time and to help entrepreneurs execute a project that otherwise might not get done as well as connect to potential talent.

Examples of Winternship projects from January include:

• Augustine & Sons, Rose Hill, Iowa - A project to analyze data from electronic identification tags from cattle  into usable insights about cattle feeding performance.
• Gross-Wen Technologies, Slater, Iowa - A project to better manage lab and research inventory and supplies and create a more efficient ordering processes and forecasting tools.
• Ascension Ag - A project to analyze animal health product distribution.
• Tractor Zoom - A project to analyze agricultural equipment sales data and develop new insights.

"I believe this is a neat program for students, giving them unique opportunities to dive into a project at a businesses, meet new people and grow their network, and learn something new and develop their skills," Jeb Gent of Ascension Ag commented. "From the businesses-side, it was valuable to have the extra help, and fun to teach/answer questions of a student."

Jack Chism (Senior, Agricultural Business) and Avi Devan (Senior, Actuarial Science) completed a project with Tractor Zoom. "We had the opportunity over the course of the week to work together on a unique dataset," commented Chism. "We were able to develop insights for the business to enable innovative additions to their products and services."

Based on business interest and student experiences, the Winternship program will be expanded in January 2026. Expressions of interest will be gathered starting in October.