A GU transfer experience
Published: June 09, 2021
Author: Sarah Thomack
When you make a decision to transfer to another institution, you want to know that the hard work you have already put in will be recognized and will count toward your degree.
“I had a really good experience transferring from junior college, all my credits came over, I felt really good when I got here, I didn’t feel behind. Overall, I had a really good experience coming to Greenville.”
Harley (Tompkins ’17) Rensing transferred to GU (Greenville College at the time) to complete her bachelor of science with a focus in environmental biology. Rensing says she grew up in the area, went off to junior college in Champaign for the first two years, and wanted to attend a small school close to home to complete her degree.
“I wanted to go somewhere that had small class sizes and a good feel,” Rensing says. “I wanted to know I would be able to get time with my professors so if I struggled, I had the option to talk to them and I wasn’t just a number.”
Rensing says being a transfer student who didn’t live on campus meant a different experience, but she adds that all the GU professors worked to make sure she still felt connected.
“(Professors) were wonderful about working with me and understanding that I had an outside life from school,” Rensing says.
Transferring skills and experience
After her college experience, Rensing wanted to do something to benefit both the GU and Greenville community. Her position as customer care manager at the small startup company CommoditAg, along with an office space at the Greenville SMART Center was the perfect match. CommoditAg is an ecommerce agriculture business that works with suppliers and manufacturers of ag products to sell direct to farmers. Rensing says it was important to her to have a location in Greenville, and to be able to work with the University to hire interns.
“To bring that back into a small community like Greenville was really important to me because a lot of the time, interns are having to go to bigger cities,” Rensing says. “I was really hoping to bring something to the town that was new, and give students the opportunity to have an internship in a different business space that’s still relatively new to the industry.”
Rensing says she strives to offer an internship that gives students real world experience and the same personalized attention she got when she was a student. Rensing fondly remembers her internship with Syngenta in Pierron, along with hands-on experience in classes with professors Andrea and Eric Nord, which gave her valuable experience that prepared her for her current career in agribusiness.
Transferring interns to the real world
Tori Dall ’20 was the first intern Rensing brought on, and she was able to gain hands-on experience with order processing, onboarding with fulfillment centers, customer care, and much more. After graduation, Dall joined the CommoditAg team full time and continues to work with Rensing out of the SMART Center.
Rensing hopes to bring in one to two interns a year who have an interest in agribusiness or marketing and be able to continue providing quality experiential learning experience close to the GU campus.
