A week in the life of a Final year Nutrition student

Monday: 

Made porridge for breakfast and grabbed by lunch and snacks from the fridge/cupboard and prepared a flask of tea for the bus. (Trying to be as organised as possible helps cause i’m not a morning person!)

Two buses to uni then half an hour in the library to sort myself out! Printed off the lectures for the day and tried to organise my research to meet with my supervisor about my final year research project.

10-12 Changing behaviour, promoting health module. Today we were looking at ethics in health promotion. We had group discussion of some examples of Obesity advertising and looked at shock factor etc. Taking time to get our heads around the concepts as it’s not normal biological pathways science that we are used to! It’s very interesting though and I’m enjoying the real life links of nutrition.

1 30 Research project meeting with supervisor – My Initial research search showed I can’t do my initial title so need to broaden my search and refine it. I wanted to look at maternal diet and fat in particular but there isn’t enough studies so I will look at maternal obesity and/or gestational diabetes.

Careers fair – Wasn’t much relevant to nutrition specific jobs but Danone have a good graduate scheme which I’ve already started my application for. I spoke to some members of staff about more volunteering opportunities too.

Library – Writing up lectures and attempting to organise all the extra reading and start doing some… I brought snacks!

Yoga 6-7 30 – A bit more intense class than I expected but felt very stretched after.

Tuesday:

No lectures! (Most time off is the time allocated to our research project)

12 30-1 30 yoga – a calmer class this time.

Library – Researching for my dissertation and looking up studies to see how many there potentially is for my systematic review

6 – Meeting with STEM outreach. Science meets art! We are helping out at the big draw which is an event happening across the country. We are putting on science activites to go alongside art activites. This was our initial meeting to put forward ideas and find out the details about what we will be doing. The exhibition at the gallery is about the gut so me and my nutrition pal are thinking of doing an activity based on digestion. We fancy making a big diagram and getting the visitors to follow the journey of their food with interactive parts to learn what happens.

Wednesday:

No lectures again! Library again! Searching for studies for my research project and writing up lectures.

2 pm – Blog soc – meeting lovely people and learning about using social media to promote your blog. Especially with all the false nutrition claims and ‘health/fitness/wellness’ blogs around I think blogging and sharing information with the general public is so important for qualified nutritionists and dietitians!

Thursday:

Took my oats and yoghurt on the bus for breakfast as I had no time!

9-11 Molecular nutrition module. We were learning about gene organisation and structure.

Library – More searching for studies and then writing up lecture notes.

4-5 yoga – a good stretch on my way home.

Friday:

Headed to the library first thing after a bowl of porridge and flask of tea in hand to go over my CV and look at a job application.

11-1 Nutrition and health of populations module. We were looking at nutritional epidemiology. Nutritional epidemiology aims to describe disease patterns and prevalence, understand why some diseases are more common and which populations this occurs in and provide information to plan public health nutrition services. The general aim is to link exposure and outcome. We learnt about study designs to assess diet and disease.

1-5 coordinated physiological functions module. Today was exercise physiology labs again. (See previous blog post for more details!)

 

How I got to nutrition and where I am now

In sixth form I studied Maths, Biology and Chemistry for A level and did AS art. I had always liked science and wanted to do something health related. I knew I didn’t want to do medicine but was interested in health and science and everything related to it. I didn’t how ever want to do a biology degree. I like biology but struggled with learning the volume of facts for exams. I liked the answers that maths had and working through a problem knowing it would be right or wrong. Chemistry was a kind of middle ground with more specific answers than biology in some ways and some more maths and calculations involved. I applied to university to study biological and medicinal chemistry – long name but essentially a mixture of core chemistry, biochemistry, some biology, and some medicinal chemistry. I’d read some books about drugs and their interactions with the body which I found interesting and I thought it could take me down the route of drug design possibly so still along the health line of science that I like.

To cut a long story short this course wasn’t the right one for me. I couldn’t relate to it and it was very theoretical science. So after a year it was time to find a new direction. I contemplated everything. Should I stay at uni? Should I get a job? Should I change course? What new course would I do?

This was the start of my journey to realise just how passionate about nutrition I am. I started on the joint Nutrition and Food science course which had the same first year modules and after that year I chose to continue with straight Nutrition as it is the human health side that really interests me as opposed to food chemistry and food manufacture. Nutrition is the gap that I wanted to study when I was in sixth form it was just a longer process to find it. But I have learnt a lot to getting to this point! (One of my mums favourite things to tell me at the moment is ‘life is a journey not a race’)

Nutrition combines science and human health. I feel like nutrition is that something I was looking for back in sixth form. I can relate it to real life which I love. I can apply the core science to health. I can see where nutrition fits into every day across the world and is only going to increase in the future. We study biochemistry, metabolism, diet in relation to disease, physiology, food science, human nutrition, animal nutrition, nutrition across the lifespan, public health nutrition, and nutrient gene interactions related to nutrition – just to name a few areas! I love it. I know this is the area I want to be in.

I have done work experience at cook and eat session with a nutritionist. I volunteer at a community meal where we provide a free vegetarian meal to the community in which many people are homeless, lonely and struggling with mental health. I have done a project with a windmill which mills flour to create information leaflets for them. There’s so so so much great nutrition and opportunities out there to make a difference.

So here I am now about to start my final year of my undergraduate degree. I’m about to start my research project in the area of maternal diet, dietary fat and cardiovascular disease. I’m asking all the questions all over again: what kind of job do I want? What careers are out there? Do I want to study more? Plus new questions: How can I get a clinical nutrition job? Should I do postgraduate dietetics? Can I afford further study? Do I want to work in industry? I want to work with people how do I do that? I would love to do dietetics, can I afford it? Should I apply now? Or work first? Which part of nutrition out of all the parts I love is a good area for jobs? What jobs can I do where I work with people?

I found out a lot during the Nutrition Society student conference (see other blogpost) so I need to start thinking, whilst also studying and starting applying. I also learnt a lot at the Association for the study of Obesity conference which I volunteered at. (blog to come)

I was told at a uni open day I was working at that I was the first person to sounds enthusiastic and passionate about nutrition she had spoken to at all the university’s she’d visited. My housemate used to laugh at me for always retweeting nutrition and food things and mentioning random facts. Hopefully I can continue this through my final year and interviews to the future of my nutrition.

Last week in my society T shirt at freshers fair.

Currently reading – We are our brains.

I am currently reading this by Dick Swaab and it is extremely interesting. I’ve read the first four sections so far which focus on development, birth and prenatal care; threats to the fetal brain in the womb; sexual differentiation of the brain in the womb; puberty,love and sexual behaviour.

The first few chapters on brain development and how the fetus is affected during pregnancy is getting me excited to start researching my dissertation. I’m going to be looking at the maternal diet. In particular fat intake in the maternal diet and development of heart disease in the offspring.

There’s so many influences to the fetus during pregnancy and so many substances/medications/environmental factors that can affect the offspring after birth but also later in life.

Some really interesting parts I didn’t know about included how sexuality develops before birth.

The next section is about the hypothalamus including survival, hormones and emotions. Some great topics in there to read next!

I’ll let you know about the rest.

For now I reccomended getting a copy and having a read too.