HARVEST Internship Program

Partnering With Florida's Aquaculture Industry To Train The Next Generation of Workforce

In support of a growing Ocean Economy, Florida Sea Grant launched its HARVEST student internship program to foster the development of a burgeoning aquaculture industry and provide valuable real-world experience to students interested in aquaculture.

HARVEST, Helping Aquaculture Reap Value and Enhance Student Training, is an internship program that offers university students paid part-time internships (up to 20 hours per week) with partnering aquaculture businesses in Florida. Students are provided with valuable workforce development skills to solve ‘real-world’ problems that impede the productivity of aquaculture businesses.

During their internship, students aid in a variety of needs denoted by the aquaculture business such as efforts to increase survivability, productivity, efficiency, sustainability, public outreach, and education.

The duties of each internship include but are not limited to:

On the farm/hatchery work (animal husbandry, harvesting, processing, culling, data collection)
Outreach, communications and marketing
Equipment maintenance and engineering
Development/expansion of new culture methods
Research project assistance

Program Structure

Florida Sea Grant supports up five student-business internships per year. Florida Sea Grant extension agents and faculty partner with aquaculture business to co-mentor the HARVEST intern during their 2-9 month internship experience. Each HARVEST internship’s duties and projects are based on the needs of the aquaculture business partner.

What partners Are saying

"We thoroughly benefitted from having a part time intern to help with our oyster husbandry. Having a fresh set of eyes on the farm allowed us to see things that had been hiding in plain sight. With our renewed perspective, we were able to implement changes at our farm to help us grow a better product!”

"Our intern was able to increase productivity by doubling the amount of work we were able to complete on the farm and increased our ability to count and sort market oysters… Within the first three weeks, he’s helped us prepare the farm for a tropical storm and a hurricane… As a small new oyster farm, the opportunity that the Florida Sea Grant has given us…is invaluable.”

“[Our intern] is a blessing. Such a good, hardworking kid!”