Yuvi Cambero is a Honors student who majored in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems as well as Plant Sciences. Learn how the Honors Colloquium helped her create connections with industry professionals and and let her get hands-on with areas of research that interested her.

Tell us a little about yourself: Where are you from? What drew you to URI? Are you a first generation college student?

I am a first generation student from Rhode Island. Since I was confident in the fact that I wanted to major in Sustainable Agriculture, URI as a land-grant institution and the only school in the state offering the major and has great facilities for it, it was the obvious choice for me! The fact that the school is just the right size (not too big or small), has a beautiful campus were just nice bonuses!

How has your Honors education helped you to think differently about topics within or outside of your major or other area of study? Has it introduced you to new concepts or ways of thinking? Has it changed the way you thought about an important issue? 

My Honors courses gave me a different insight into the world and topics within my major. Through it, I took courses on various topics I otherwise would not have and was able to interact with a students in other majors. This served to introduce me to areas I otherwise might not have though of or talked about in my college experience.

As you completed your Honors course(s), what are ways that you feel it helped prepare you for life after URI?

While there were a variety of things that I learned in the honors curriculum, the Honors Colloquium and the Honors Project really stick out to me. The Colloquium I took was called Just Good Food and was a fantastic learning experience like no other course I’ve taken. In this class, we got to learn from and speak with industry professionals directly and even have dinner with them. It was incredible to get to hear all those amazing talks every week and to cover a wide variety of interconnected topics from various perspectives. This also served as a networking opportunity and a way to learn about different options for careers in the field. The project was also an amazing way to get some hands-on experience into a topic of interest. In my case, I was able to do research that I hope to build on in my career starting with publishing this work and then, hopefully expanding upon it later on!

What are your short and long term plans post graduation?

Right after graduation I will be apprenticing until the end of October at with the Savanna Institute Agroforestry program. At the end of this time, I’ll be looking for employment in my field and then hopefully, I can go to grad school soon after.