Graduates help breed confidence in new program among sheep farmers
New experience
For the graduates, embarking on such a career has been an unusual, but rewarding experience.
In July 2019, Xu was assigned to her first job, overseeing a pen that contained 200 Hu sheep.
She recalled that the smell made her feel unwell in the early days. After a day of cutting grass, feeding the sheep and clearing away their dung, her white shoes were black and her head was spinning with issues related to the animals.
She had to patrol the pen at set hours overnight to see if any sheep had fallen sick.
At first, she was scared because the path from her dormitory to the pen was unlit, so to bolster her spirits she usually called her mother on video chat and spoke with her as she walked.
Sheep are timid around strangers and they bolted and even knocked Xu down every time she vaccinated them.
She was unfazed. "I did physical training every day when I studied at a police college and I am not afraid of hard work," she said.
In 2018, Xu took an exam to become a police officer after graduating from the Hunan Judicial Police Vocational College in Changsha, the provincial capital, but failed. She also failed when she retook the exam the following year.
Seeing that her dreams of joining the police were going nowhere, she began looking for other work.
"I needed a job so I did not have to ask my parents for money. I saw this one online and after choosing the career, I found it interesting," she said.
"I was pleased to see the number of sheep doubled thanks to my hard work. The animals became friendlier and cuter to me and I liked caring for them."
In April last year, the company transferred her to the human resources department on a monthly salary of about 3,000 yuan ($457).
She plans to study for an HR qualification and further develop her career with the company.
"The local government provides a lot of policy and financial support for sheep farmers and poverty alleviation purposes, so the company has a promising future," she said.
