As an electrical engineering student at Yale, I had never considered that I would ever work in construction or fulfill my dream of being a cowboy…

It was the summer of 2020, and I was working as an engineer in Rhode Island during the peak of COVID. I would take long walks down some country roads and play guitar outside of a small airport, watching the airplanes take off and land. However, I was unhappy. I felt so cooped up and so restrained. I searched around and made friends with some of the local farmers, offering to work for free in the afternoons or on weekends—anything to get me away from the lonely solitude of lockdowns! Unfortunately, aside from getting gallons of free blueberries from a farmer friend, I did not have any luck finding a place to get away and work.

A few weeks after returning home from the summer (I was studying remotely for my senior year), a family friend had asked if I wanted to help pregnancy test his cows. Realizing it was my summer dream come true, I jumped at the opportunity. Little did I know that it would turn into a really wonderful learning opportunity because he was the owner of a precast concrete company. After I had gotten through with the day, rounding up cows on my first cattle drive and sorting them to be pregnancy tested, I had offered to work on weekends under two conditions: I wanted to work hard and learn something new. Oh boy, I had never expected to work so hard and learn so much…

Here is a very small selection of my adventures and misadventures!