Babcock Dairy Interns Expand Business, Receive Hands-On Experience in Workforce

Product development, data analysis, digital marketing and outreach are essential components of a successful business. With the help of four student interns, Babcock Dairy has been able to expand these areas of its business while achieving its mission of education through hands-on experience.

Howard Ling, a product development intern and a student in the Food Science Department, worked to develop a sorbet and other non-dairy ice cream products. He took the sorbet through every stage of the development process, from market research to formulation and sourcing.

“I think it’s really fun to develop a new product from scratch,” Ling said. “I just really enjoy the process of being able to discover different theories of coming up with a recipe.”

In the future, Ling hopes to attend graduate school for food science and pursue a career in research and development. His position at Babcock Dairy gave him a taste of his future career while bolstering his resume.

As a data analysis intern, Marcus Malig gathered and presented data regarding waste, cheese production and more to inform future sustainability initiatives and plant production volume.

Malig is studying Data Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and hopes to enter the workforce after graduation, with the hopes of attending graduate school down the line.

“I think my internship gave me some practice in things that I would expect in a career in data resource management,” Malig said. “I think it was a good bird’s eye view of looking into my future.”

Malig’s favorite aspect of his internship was looking behind the scenes of the Dairy Store and Dairy Plant. As the first data analyst at Babcock, Malig organized records about ice cream, cheese and more to present top-selling flavors, cheese sales and waste statistics.

Another perk to the internship, Malig said, was working alongside his fellow interns to compare problems and view their growth.

“We all came here just trying to get a job on campus and now we can utilize some of the skills we’re learning in our careers,” Malig said.

Gabby Cosentino, a digital marketing intern, assisted in planning and developing social media content as well as advertising campaigns. She appreciated the freedom to use her creative skills on social media platforms.

“I think there was a lot of creative freedom because I had a nice outline, but I got to interpret the way I felt like I could do it instead of having a strict guideline,” Cosentino said. “I could put my own spin on things.”

In the future, Cosentino hopes to use her degree in marketing to run her own business. This internship gave her the opportunity to work hands-on with skills learned in her courses, she said.

“Having internship experience is really important because it’s a good resume building and hands-on experience for my degree that can be applied in my future business endeavors and school,” Cosentino said.

As an outreach and policy intern, Lauren Nelson created programming for new UW students, developed pop-up events and wrote a student employee handbook for the Dairy Store, among other tasks.

Nelson hopes to use her economics degree to pursue a career in investment banking. This internship gave her networking and communications skills that she said are essential to her future career.

One of the highlights for Nelson’s internship was the work environment, she said.

“This is a very fun group of people and everybody pretty much has the same demeanor, which is nice to have,” Nelson said. “Everybody’s very nice and humble.”