Video Transcript

Host Question: What is a master’s level degree in nutrition? How long does that take and what types of different career opportunities does getting the master’s level of education open up to you?

Answer: A master’s level degree would take about two years. Right now, you don’t need a master’s degree to become a dietitian, but actually in 2024, you will. So we’re right on the cusp right now. If you complete your dietetic internship and take your RDA exam before 2024 for you, you’re sort of grandfathered in. But in 2024, you will need that master’s degree in order to even sit for that RDA exam. Doesn’t need to be a master’s in nutrition. It could be a master’s in anything right now. If you were to have a master’s degree, you do open yourself up to teaching jobs if you want to teach nutrition, if you want to open your own dietetic internship. Some of these people who are graduating now in the next couple of years, they will all have master’s degrees. So if you are kind of at that point in your journey now, it’s probably a good idea to get a master’s in the fields of Nutrition and Dietetics to be a dietitian.

Answer: They actually are making a master’s degree mandatory to sit for the dietetics exam starting in 2024. So over the next couple of years, you might be able to sneak under the radar for that one. But then after 2024, you will need a master’s degree to be a dietitian, but right now you don’t. So what it does open up, I will say, especially in the public health realm, if you did want to go the public health nutrition route, it does open up more like managerial positions, higher paying jobs, having a master’s degree, especially in public health. They really like to see that. As far as nutrition dietetics, like I said, you’ll need a master’s degree in the next couple of years and it’ll take you about two years. My program was either one year full time or two years part time.

Answer: With your masters, there’s a few different options. You can do just the master’s program, which might be between one year to even three years, depending on what school you go to, depending on what discipline you do. You can also do like what I did is a coordinated program where you do your master’s and your internship at the same time. So you would apply through DHS, which is the dietetic match program. You’d apply through that, and then you’d also apply to your master’s program. My program was only one year. I did one year of my grad school. And internship at the same time. It was the fastest program I think they had. But there’s other programs that do that where you apply to daycares for one year and then you do your master’s with that program within two years or three years. So it’s usually in that one to three year range. And with that you can definitely go on to do your internship or you can do your internship at same time, or you can even go into research from there. A lot of people that just want to do nutrition research don’t always become ADRs. They just stay in that area and continue on to their patient through there.

Answer: From what I’ve seen, the Masters degree opens up a few options with kind of running departments or running the show with other dietitians working underneath you. I have seen department heads at schools and colleges having their masters in nutrition and then also leading research teams leading the departments in hospitals as well.