College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Ever since high school, working in supply chain logistics has been an interest and desire for Katherine DeLorenzo. While she explored marketing and sales as potential options, it was a specific experience that helped solidify her mind. After shadowing her friend’s mom who worked in supply chain management for auto companies, DeLorenzo decided that was what she was going to do with her career.

Today, DeLorenzo is a senior in Food Industry Management (FIM) in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics (AFRE) at Michigan State University (MSU). Since joining the department, she made sure to set herself up for success by getting involved right away.

“I was really looking to get involved and get stuff on my resume,” she shared. “So, I first applied to the Food Marketing Association executive board as Vice president of communications. That actually got the opportunity for me to help our board start the association up again and bring students and speakers in.

DeLorenzo continued, “That's been a big involvement for me. I'm still doing that next year, and then I'll give out the position and hand it off to someone else. But that's been fun getting to meet new people that are coming into AFRE and also help recruit for the FIM major. Everything happens for a reason. And that's been proven my whole time throughout the AFRE program. I have really liked it.

As a direct result of her involvement with the Food Marketing Association, DeLorenzo received an opportunity to help reenforce her career choices. This summer she traveled to Covington, GA where she is interning with General Mills as a supply chain logistics intern.

In this role, DeLorenzo has been able to experience many different tasks that have helped her receive a well-balanced internship.

For my day to day, I have three projects,” she explained. “I do outbound planning for the whole plant. So, I schedule trucks of finished product to be shipped out to our plant warehouses and then eventually end up on the shelves in the stores. I also keep track of the crates in the yard and making sure that we're not losing them and they're not sitting there for too long. Finally, I also help out with cycle count, which is where they count the inventory that they have in the warehouse.”

With this being her first experience on her own outside of Michigan, DeLorenzo has ensured that she would take full advantage of this experience. For her, the people and process have been the most rewarding of the experience.

“The logistics department isn't huge so really connecting with my coworkers has been great,” she shared. “I sit in an office with eight people I've really gotten to know and just making these connections have been so they've just been awesome. And then also while I'm possibly exploring coming back full time, everyone in the company that I've reached out to has just been more than happy to take time out of their day and talk to me about what they do or give me career advice or act as a mentor, which I definitely think has been my favorite part.”

DeLorenzo also added, “Gaining experience like this and knowing that the outbound planning I'm doing is a reason why I'm seeing Cheerios on the shelf in stores just has been very cool.”

This is not a her first internship while being a student in AFRE, and DeLorenzo is well aware of the importance these experiences have on her future. Her current experience with General Mills has affirmed she is making an right decisions.

DeLorenzo finishes her internship with General Mills in August and will return to MSU to wrap up her degree within AFRE. She is looking forward to what lies ahead after graduation, but wanted to share a piece of advice to students just starting.

“Getting involved is going to set you ahead of so many more people who chose to not pursue opportunities,” she shares. “Whether it's just maybe just going to club meetings and meeting these alumni that want to help you out and getting involved in school in general, even if it's not a I just meeting people, because you're only there for four years, so you got to make the most of it.”