Video Transcript

Host Question: Are there any advantages or disadvantages to doing this specific type of education online?

Answer: I completed a bachelor’s degree in person for nutrition, but I completed a master’s degree in nutrition online. I felt definitely more connected to my program, my teachers, my professors when I was in person. But online does have advantages in that. If you have a life, if you have a job, if you have a family, it creates opportunities for nontraditional students. And if you’re able to remember that the classes are going on and not, you know, sort of be self-sufficient in that way, it is a great option for nontraditional students.

Answer: Depends on what your plan is with your degree and with your career. If you’re planning to work with clients online in a virtual setting, then the online option will definitely give you everything you need to be able to do that. If you are planning on working in-person with people, it would be a little tricky to go from just virtual learning to working with people one on one, face to face and also with the education aspect. It was really nice to be able to do labs in person and actually see the scientific process, work on studies and things like that wouldn’t be able to be done through a virtual education program.

Answer: I would say that, especially in the world of nutrition, it’s always so important to get that practice with counseling. Counseling is one of the scariest things that you have to do when you’re learning to become a dietitian because you’re like, I’m in a room alone with someone. What do I say? How do I do this? And so from my junior year of college, we were practicing doing one on one counseling. I’d say that’s one of the things that you definitely want to have hands on experience with. If you’re interested in culinary nutrition, culinary nutrition, to be able to do it, or especially if you’re teaching classes, if you’re teaching cooking, you’re going to want to have to do that in person. It’s hard to practice that alone.

Question: Are there any advantages and disadvantages to doing the online education that would be specific to the nutrition field and what you’re having to study?

Answer: I don’t think there would be any disadvantages for it. There are some opportunities that you get just being in person, like it takes a little while to get used to counseling people and like you practice that a lot in class. So it’s nice to have a person and you can assess their body language and you get some practices that way. That’s really the only disadvantage I can see. I personally did a lot of classes online because I always worked through school, so it was really nice to have that flexible schedule. Whether or not there was an opportunity to do that online would depend on the degree program.