After my guest post on Kath Eats Real Food last week, I received lots of emails from people asking for advice about becoming a registered dietitian. My journey to becoming an RD was a little long, but hopefully it will help someone out there who is thinking about this career path.
So let’s start back at the beginning….
I went to Virginia Tech for undergrad… Go Hokies!
I originally wanted to be an obstetrician, so I declared biology as my major. It only took me 2 semesters to realize that I hated any classes that had to do with plants or animals.
I think a little part of me died every time I had to go to Evolutionary Biology.
On the other hand, I naturally gravitated toward any material that had to do with nutrition. I took Introduction to Nutrition and absolutely loved it. After my freshman year, I decided to change my major to Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise.
At Virginia Tech, there were several different concentrations within HNFE: dietetics, science and health promotion. The science concentration was geared towards pre-med students, so that was the one I went with.
I continued with school but as graduation neared, it was pretty evident that I was not cut out for med school. I decided to pursue nursing school after graduation instead because it was less school but I could stick with the medical field. I was accepted to Radford’s nursing program and planned to attend the fall after graduation.
Welcome to School Nutrition
One night during summer before nursing school, I came across a vacancy for a school nutritionist position. I wasn’t planning on looking for a full-time job at the time and I was under qualified for the job according to the description.
Did I have experience? No.
My RD? No.
Master’s? No.
So naturally I applied anyway.
I’m still not sure how or why, but I got a call for an interview the next day and was eventually offered the position. The thought of nursing school completely went out the window… I had worked my way through college, sometimes 2 jobs at a time, and the idea of having a real salary with benefits was too good for me to turn down.
So that’s how my career in nutrition began. I took me about 30 seconds at my new job to realize that I had no freakin’ idea what I was doing. I knew nothing about food service or feeding kids. Heck, I didn’t even know a school system had a child nutrition department…. I thought the individual schools planned their own menus.
I felt a little lost in the beginning, but I spent the next 3 years learning everything I could about school food service. I read extra material, worked from home many nights, joined the School Nutrition Association, and got a few extra certifications to be able to teach some classes to our staff.
I became really passionate about the field and loved it!
Growing Up & Thinking about the RD
During that same time, lots of exciting things were going on in my life! Kyle and I got engaged and then married, we bought our first house and I graduated from VT with my master’s in health education. I felt very fulfilled, both personally and professionally.
The only thing that was missing was my RD.
At work, I got asked if I was a registered dietitian all.the.time. by parents and teachers. There once was a time when one of the school librarians told me she wished the school system would have hired a “real” nutritionist. That really hurt my feelings because I was trying so hard to do well at my job.
But at the same time, I wondered if I could be doing a better job with product selection and special diets had I had the experience of becoming a registered dietitian.
So in 2010, I began looking at what it would take to get my RD.
How to Become an Registered Dietitian
There are 4 basic steps to becoming an RD:
- Earn a bachelor’s degree
- Complete an accredited dietetic program
- Complete a dietetic internship
- Pass the RD exam
I obviously already had a bachelor’s degree, but I did not technically complete an accredited dietetics program because I chose the non-dietetic concentration at Virginia Tech when I was pre-med. I talked to the dietetics program at VT and after a transcript evaluation, I saw that I would need to take 12 more classes to complete the coursework. I tried to enroll in their program, which would have taken me 1 year to complete, but my job at the time declined my request to leave work early 2 days per week to attend class. So my RD plans were put on hold.
The Move to Charlotte
We decided to move to Charlotte in early 2011. K moved in January for a new job and I stayed back in Virginia while we tried to sell our house and I job-hunted. I had SUCH a hard time finding a nutrition job in NC because almost everything either required or strongly preferred an RD. It took me 6 months to find a job (a really great school nutrition job, by the way) and after that experience, I knew I needed to finish school.
My boss at my new job was very supportive of me becoming an RD, so I continued to explore options to complete the coursework I needed while still being able to work full-time. My options were to attend Winthrop University or try to find an online program. I was actually accepted into Winthrop, but the commute and class schedule made it very difficult to consider that as a feasible option. So I decided to go the online route.
Didactic Program in Dietetics: The University of Alabama
After searching for accredited online programs (there are very few, by the way), I decided on UA’s DPD program. I spread out my coursework with a plan to take 1-3 classes per semester and finish in 2 years.
I thought taking online classes would be easy but the program was actually pretty difficult. I had lots of assignments, studying and group projects. I even had to get all of my exams proctored. It was a lot more than I anticipated, especially with starting a new job, but I kept my eye on the prize and finished in May 2013.
Match Process
During my last semester of UA, I started applying to dietetic internships. I was looking for a program that started in the summer, was concentrated in school nutrition, had some flexibility to arrange your own rotations, and gave me as much credit as possible for my food service rotation.
My options in the Charlotte area were limited with this criteria, so I had to do *a lot* of research on programs.
The dietetic internship application process is a centralized match process. I had to send all of my materials to DICAS, rank the programs in the order of my preference and wait to see which one I was matched with!
It was a very suspenseful process. The programs I applied to were:
- Utah State University
- Iowa State University
- South Carolina’s Department of Health
- Morrison/Chartwell’s Regional Program
- Meredith College
In April, I found out I was matched with my first choice internship- Utah State University!
Dietetic Internship
At the beginning of June, I boarded a plane by myself to Salt Lake City, UT for my DI orientation.
I spent 4 days learning all about the internship process as well as meeting my fellow interns.
I found many interns to be in the same situation that I was in: started working in nutrition, realized they needed their RD, and were taking a break from work to finish their internships.
I really enjoyed meeting everyone and the orientation was a great experience. Also, Salt Lake City is beautiful.
I immediately started my rotations the following week. Here’s what my schedule looked like:
- Inpatient Clinical: 6 weeks
- Staff Relief: 2 weeks
- Food Service Management: 7 weeks (shortened from 13 wks bc of work experience)
- Outpatient Clinical: 3 weeks
- Long-Term Care Clinical: 2 weeks
- Community/WIC: 4 weeks
So for the next 6 months, I interned away! That time was honestly such a blur to me that it’s hard to remember everything now. I interned for 40 hours/week, did school work for 2-3 hours every night and then worked a little bit on the side for my school nutrition job. It was a crazy time, but I luckily had lots of great support from my friends and family. I finished my internship at the end of November 2013!
The RD Exam
After spending a week relaxing with my family over Thanksgiving, I started to buckle down and study for my RD exam. At the recommendation of my internship director, I studied for ~2 hours every night for 4 weeks.
The study tools I used were RD in a Flash and The Inman Review. I carried the flash cards with me everywhere and pulled them out whenever I could. Here’s how I used The Inman Review:
- Listened to each of the CDs all the way through without looking at the study material (many fond memories of taking bubble baths while listening to Inman on my iphone)
- Went back through and listened to each CD again, this time with the study guide. I highlighted anything that seemed like I didn’t fully understand
- Studied anything I highlighted very hard
A little secret that I kept from everyone except my husband was that I registered to take my exam (on January 2) right when I finished my internship. I didn’t want people to know when I was taking it just in case I failed. We went on vacation over Christmas to visit family and I spent every second of my spare time studying!
I will never forget spending New Year’s 2014: a champagne glass in 1 hand and my study guide in the other
January 2, 2014 will always be one of the happiest days of my life. After 2 years of classes, 6 months of an internship and 1 month of studying, I passed my RD exam!
Looking Back
The road was long, but I am SO glad I became a registered dietitian. I learned so much during my internship… it was very eye-opening to see how much I didn’t know about nutrition! And it was awesome to get to actually experience all of the different areas of dietetics to see which was the best fit for me.
It has been less than a year since I finished school and my RD has already opened up a lot of doors for me. I also see a trend that more and more jobs are requiring RDs, and I’m glad I will not be limited in what I can do because I didn’t finish the process.
My advice to anyone starting this process is to take it 1 step at a time. The thought of school + internship + exam is overwhelming but it is worth it in the end!
How funny!! I was accepted to USU for this year’s internship!!! I start in January!! I’m excited, but nervous, and somewhat not looking forward to tons of “school work” again!
What a small world! I loved USU’s internship program… it was such a great experience. Good luck :)
Sam, I love your blog! I saw your post on Kath Eats Real Food and absolutely love your involvement with school nutrition. I’m an undergrad wanting to be an RD and reading this post really makes me feel like I can do it no matter how long it will take me.
The road to becoming an RD is a long one but it’s very rewarding. Good luck with school!
Hey Sam! I am in the Master’s program for nutrition + DPD requirements at Winthrop. I am researching all my options for internships at the moment. Were your rotations done in Charlotte? I would love to stay in the area, but I don’t want to limit myself to the few local ones.
Hi Kate! My rotations were done around Charlotte- Mooresville, Albemarle and Greensboro. I had a hard time finding clinical preceptors in the actual city because most of the hospitals already work with Winthrop, App State and Lenoir-Rhyne. Had I really tried to network and find preceptors earlier, I possibly could have found all of my preceptors in Charlotte. It was a lot to try to find my own preceptors… I’d strongly consider Winthrop’s internship program because I know *a lot* of RDs who had a great experience there! Doing a distance education program is actually harder on the intern, in my opinion.
Thanks for your input!
I would love to get Winthrop’s internship, but I feel safer having more options, if you know what I mean! :D
Yes, I definitely know what you mean! I also shared the same struggle with wanted to stay in the area but feeling very limited with options. If you’re looking into the distance option then I highly recommend Utah State’s program. It was organized and I felt very prepared for the exam! Finding preceptors was a pain, though, so that is the main downside.
I am in the process of deciding whether or not to go to UA for the Distance program. Would you recommend it? Do you feel it prepared you well for the exam and internship? When you say you had to get all of your exams proctored- what do you mean by that? Any more feedback that you have would be greatly appreciated!!
Thank you! and congrats on your success!
I talked to one preceptor that worked with USU and she felt that the program was not very well organized for the preceptor. However this was a few years ago and maybe it has improved. Any thoughts or discussion from your preceptors about the program? I like USU concentration so I hope you say that it has improved
I finished the program in 2013 and thought that things were extremely organized for the preceptor. I actually had several of my preceptors tell me the same thing. Requirements and expectations are clearly laid out for the students and preceptors, the preceptor has a video meeting with the student and the internship director at the beginning of the rotation and the internship director checks in with the preceptor periodically throughout the rotation. I had a great experience with USU and highly recommend their program.
thank you – your response helps me a lot.
Hi!
I’m active duty military and my dream has been to become a dietitian (hence military to pay for college). Unfortunately there are no local or nearby colleges that offer the program. I’ve been looking at University of Alabamas online program and was very excited when I saw you took the same path!
Can you give me any pointers or tips when doing this entire thing online? I’ve got a pretty demanding job already. How would it work? About how much time did you spend on coursework and studying? I’m just afraid my military obligations will interfere with my ability to study appropriately.
Thanks,
Kasey
Hi Kasey. First of all, thanks so much for your service! I worked full-time and took 1-2 classes at a time generally. The hardest part was getting exams proctored because that was just a hassle. The good news is that you can work at your own pace, so you can knock out a bunch of work at one time if you’d like. It honestly did take a lot of time but maybe you could start out with 1 class just to see how it goes? Good luck!
Would it be impossible to be accepted into a graduate program (hopefully with a coordinated internship program) if my undergraduate degree is completely unrelated?
Hi Ken! I would recommend looking at a few of the programs you’re interested in and checking out their prerequisites. I would imagine they would be very science-heavy so if your undergraduate degree didn’t involve science courses then it might be hard to start out with a master’s coordinated program. Here’s the website for the Chapel Hill program to give you an example: http://sph.unc.edu/nutr/unc-nutrition/student-life/nutr-degrees/ Hope that helps!
Thanks! What if I am able to take the prerequisites before applying?