One Semester Down, Almost

I have two weeks left of my first semester of graduate school. HURRAY! To say that the past few  months have been hectic is an understatement. I’m shocked that I can get it all done and keep everything straight! Thankfully I am very organized and I’m very efficient so I can find time to get my work done on time. 🙂 I am really looking forward to a month-long break from school!

Since I haven’t really mentioned my classes that much, I wanted to give a brief overview of the courses I took this semester! Thought it might be kind of interesting, since I know it is to me.

Background: I’m currently enrolled as a graduate student for a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Nutrition Science (Didactic Program in Dietetics–the program that provides the required courses to get an Dietetic Internship, pass the Registered Dietitian exam and ultimately become an RD) and a Master of Science in Applied Nutrition program. It sounds complicated. (And it kind of is.) I wasn’t originally going to get a Master’s Degree, but since it will be required for RDs in 2017 (About when I’ll be done with all this…I KNOW), I went all-in.

Community Nutrition. This is one of the classes I need for the DPD program. And its awesome. We learned about the community aspect of nutrition: the role of the nutrition professionals in the community and all about the different types of government nutrition programs (such as SNAP, WIC, etc) and how to access the community’s needs when it comes to nutrition and health. Originally I thought I needed volunteer hours for this course (we do for another course down the road) so I began volunteering the the CDCG Veggie Mobile, and that has been the most eye-opening and rewarding experiences. Its allowed me to help (in a small way) the people who need help the most when it comes to gaining access to healthy foods. But so much more work needs to be done.

Research for the Health Sciences. This may sound like a pretty boring class, but I actually have enjoyed it! Thankfully I recently took statistics in Spring 2013 so stats was fresh in my brain. I also took a required sociology research class over the summer, both of which prepped me for this graduate level class. Here, we learned about how analyze data (mostly in the health field) using a program called SPSS. I actually enjoy it–and it has me thinking about getting into research in the future! So much more research in the nutrition field has to be done.

Weight Management. Another Grad-level course. I also enjoyed it, because we got to take a look at many, many research articles on the topic of obesity and what types of interventions work to treat it. I feel like it hit close to home for me because I’ve been there. But its weird, because I still struggle with it, and always will. We are learning the skills to treat obese/overweight patients and to figure out what works based on research. Its tough, because everyone is different. One of the reasons I want to get into this field is to help the people who struggle with the problems I did. This course was proof to me that weight loss and maintenance really complicated issue, but it can be done.