From an early age growing up on a cattle and row crop operation in Central Iowa, Jake Hlas (animal science, agriculture and society) knew that he was passionate about production agriculture. Through high school, his career aspirations were refined to beef reproduction and nutrition and the research being done at Iowa State made his decision to study animal science easy.
Jake’s election to serve as a State FFA Officer for the Iowa FFA Association was a bend in the road and led to a whirlwind of events. Traveling across Iowa as voice of agriculture, Jake found that he had lost some of his passion for reproduction and nutrition. But a trip to South Africa, seeing how farm policies, actions and regulations originating in the United States make their way across the globe, provided a new passion in the policy and world trade that affects farmers locally.
In the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, students have the opportunity to study abroad on all seven continents. Out of the classroom experiences like studying abroad offer the chance to see different sides of a topic and bring textbooks to life.