 Hello and welcome. We are excited to present a wonderful webinar event for the 100% Online Masters in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. So thank you for participating and thank you for your time. And now I'd like to turn the presentation over to Dr Molly Bray to review our agenda. Molly. Hi. Thank you Jackie. We're super happy that you're here with us tonight and I'm Molly Bray. I am the chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Tonight we're going to talk a little bit about why you should choose UT versus other places and then we'll talk a lot about the specifics of the program, about the admissions, how you can be successful in this program, how we can support your experience and cover a lot of frequently asked questions. So I will begin by just kind of giving an overview of our department. So welcome to our graduate program. When you're in this particular master's program you actually become part of the larger graduate program. Here's just some photos of the campus. That's me on graduation day. I'm standing in front of the pandemic, saying hello to the pandemic graduates, and that is the Texas Tower right behind me, and I'm standing in the courtyard of Gearing Hall. So Gearing Hall is the, in the center of the UT campus, and it's where our teaching kitchens and our research kitchens are located. One of our researchers are at the laboratory and had the laboratory space out of the Dell Pediatric Research Institute. So the Department of Nutritional Sciences is closely aligned with the Department of Pediatrics and the Dell Medical School. One of the quick facts about UT, it's one of the oldest universities in Texas and one of the largest university systems. There's about 3,300 faculty, more than 50,000 students, 12,000 degrees awarded every year about 3,500 of those are graduate degrees. There are more than 170 fields of study. And even though nobody goes to the library anymore we have one of the largest library collections with over 8 million volumes. And he is also the home of the Texas Advanced Computing Center, which is one of the largest computing resources in the world. So, when I talk about nutrition science people who aren't familiar with what nutrition scientists do always ask me about, where is the science and nutritional sciences. So, I always like to say, we are part of a college of natural science, and we are kind of the bright center of the universe. Most scientists are good cooks, and many cooks are good scientists so if people who aren't familiar with nutrition science think about cooking, we actually do, we do food science and we actually get in a laboratory. So, when I talk about us, we are the center of the universe of our particular College of Natural Sciences, and that we incorporate aspects of almost every department in the college. Work that we do incorporates the physics and the chemistry of food. We have lots of courses very strongly focused on nutritional biochemistry and molecular biology. Several components of the faculty research include a focus on understanding how the brain drives eating behavior, and a lot of focus on the human biology of nutrition. We have statistical geneticists who are experts on the faculty. We look at many different kinds of model organisms, and several of the faculty are interested in high level data collection using wearable devices and things like that to track nutrition related behavior so we do an element of computer science as well. The faculty, the online faculty consists of 14 different faculty members. And as you can see here, there's a wide range of expertise among the faculty from very strongly biochemical, bio biological aspects of nutrition to behavioral and applied and functional sorts of nutrition as well. So, a great depth of expertise in the faculty. So we always say when life gives you lemons, we nutrition scientists make delicious gourmet lemonade and bulk quantities, while explaining the benefits of a scorbic acid, folate and potassium. So we love that aspect of nutrition science and to explain more about the program is I would like to introduce Dr. Sarah Schweitzer who is the director of the online program. Hello, and welcome. Thank you for joining us. So, I'm going to start talking a little more details about the program in specifics and hopefully answer a lot of your questions give you some valuable information. And let's get started. And the first way to start is with this degree where does a master's in nutrition science lead. Well, if we've, from our students that have taken the program so far, we've seen a lot of different directions with a head. We look at absolutely in professional advancement in a current career you may already work in nutrition or dietetics, and the masters of science and nutritional science will help advance you in that career. Other health professionals that may not work specifically in nutrition but now have discovered that an aspect of their practice involves nutrition so they add the MS to that to that, their current credential and it allows them to do a different work and successful education for advanced degree we have several students who are using this as sort of a gap year or preparation for applying to medical school pharmacy school dental school, another program like that. And then also, there are careers that in food science and the food science industry the food industry fitness industry nutrition education and other health care aspects. If we look at our student body over the past several years what we see and currents including current students, we see that 60% are currently enrolled 30% graduated and 10% withdrew for various reasons. So it gives you gives you an idea of our student body. And now, why would you choose University of Texas. We think it's a great school but we have other reasons. We have competitive national stature in our nutrition science department and the University as a whole. We provide a very flexible schedule, and there's easy accessibility to our program and we also deliver our program in a structured manner. We'll talk a little more about that. Our emphasis is functional foundation of nutrition. So we do several courses in nutrition biochemistry and molecular nutrition. We have you take courses that cause you to think critically and critical evaluation of study methods and statistical analysis. And you have a choice of a concentration if you wish. Our two concentrations are either biochemical and functional nutrition. This helps you understand the cellular molecular reaction to inflammation genetics food and disease. So we're taking those nutrients and following them throughout the human body and understanding molecularly and in the right down into the cell, what is what the food particles of food nutrients are causing body to do. And then we have health promotion disease prevention. This takes more of a broader population look at what nutrition what we what you can do with nutrition and treatment and prevention of obesity and chronic disease. So we have different professional guidelines and behavior based intervention really look at how do you make someone's change their behavior. Some of the benefits to our program are that we are a professor paced program and we do asynchronous delivery. So there is consistent online delivery with clear deadlines. Each week. The module opens on early on Sunday morning. There are two modules of material. The first module would assignments would be due by Wednesday night 1159pm central time. The next assignment for that week, the second module would be due on Saturday night 1159pm. So we keep you on track. Of course, you're allowed to report the deadline on your timeline so we have some people that get up there on get up on Sunday and work through a lot of material, and then paste themselves through the rest of the week. Other people through their work schedule they might not attack it until Tuesday morning but they devote a significant amount of time on Tuesday, for example, to paste themselves through the week. The organization of the material we feel helps keep you on track and accountable for the material and assignments. We have two tracks that allows you the flexibility to complete the program either in one or two years. The courses are each seven weeks long. So you complete one the first half of fall one that then when the second half of fall seven weeks at a time, they require approximately 10 to 14 hours per week. And you select either the one year track or the two year track. So if you choose the one year track you're taking two courses at a time and four courses for each long semester. So if you're taking the two year track you're taking one course at a time and you complete to each long semester. This gives you a better idea of the schedule that you would follow so this is the one year track and notice in the fall semester, you're going to take your first core course the core courses are in orange, and you'll compare that with your first core course. If you choose health promotion disease prevention or biochemical and functional nutrition, and then at the second seven weeks of the fall semester you would move into your second core course and your second concentration course. In the spring semester you would repeat that pattern and take the third core course with your third. Concentration course and then you would finish up the spring semester with your fourth core course and your fourth concentration course, and in the summer you would have your fifth core course and, and the final your fifth concentration course. If you follow the two year track, notice you're in the top line the year one, you're taking just one course at a time for the first seven weeks second seven weeks then we follow that same pattern for the spring. One course in the summer, and then in your second year, you would take your five concentration courses to in the fall to in the spring and one in the summer. The core courses are advanced advances in nutritional sciences one and two, they cover the macro nutrient biochemistry and micronutrient biochemistry, but molecular nutrition, and then we have two courses in experimental experimental design and statistics. Your concentration if we look at the health motion disease prevention concentration, we see theories of nutrition behavior, energy balance and obesity, nutrition to the life cycle, nutrition and disease prevention and we finish up with current issues and nutrition. For the biochemical and functional nutrition track concentration, you would have biochemical nutrition nutrition is medicine, nutrition and cancer, nutrition and immunology, nutrition genomics and again finish up with current issues and nutrition. That final course the two concentrations come together to do that final course, and we have you essentially test your scientific your scientist skills, and you're really evaluating and analyzing a lot of data and studies. Now the admission requirements. They include a bachelor's degree in science related field, or another degree can be done but what we look for is the prerequisite coursework organic chemistry general nutrition biochemistry and physiology are key prerequisites. We want everybody to be successful in the program and having understanding of foundation the foundation knowledge actually a biochemistry and physiology and some general nutrition are critical. If a personal statement is required, we want to know about you want to know why you're interested in this degree what you intend to do with it. And a resume or CV is required three letters of recommendation. And ideally we want at least one of those to at least one to be from an academic reference, and then total or IELTS, if you're an international student, there are currently not there are no testing requirements such as the GRE. So how do you succeed in our program. First, you do obtain the prerequisite knowledge that biochemistry physiology organic chemistry and general nutrition. These do need to be completed before classes begin, whether you begin on the fall term or the spring term, you would just need to have the prerequisite coursework done by the time you start we start classes. For successful students they would need a strong score with either the TOEFL or the IELS, IESL, you will need strong reading and writing skills, and then create a consistent schedule our most successful students have a set pattern that they set pattern or schedule that they work on the material throughout the week. So how do we support your learning experience. Myself, I am program director and I'm there to answer a lot of questions, but Stephanie Hunses as our graduate coordinator is there to answer. Many, many of your questions and she direction the right direction and where to go on our website for other answers. And then Lauren Schrieffer is our instructional technology specialist so we as a team are there to ensure the success of our students. Now let's go through some of the questions, common questions that we've had from past students and applicants. So the prerequisites, does your bachelor's degree fulfill the requirement. If your bachelor's degree has had a basic science courses, it does. But we set a science related degree so we've had people possibly applying with, for example an exercise science degree. We've had a lot of physiology they've had some nutrition but very likely they have not had any biochemistry, we would ask that they take consider taking that biochemistry class. As I said we want to ensure the success of all the students and since we start you with a graduate level nutritional biochemistry class, we feel it's in your best interest to have at least that foundation knowledge. The professional background fulfill the requirement. If the professional background has had you take some biochemistry in the past, then yes it does. Most health professions have had some biochemistry. And then what courses can you take to fulfill the requirement. Your bachelor's degree courses are part of the requirement or the way that the graduate school will evaluate your transcripts. They'll take consideration here over division coursework. When they look to calculate your GPA for admission, they will not require that you take the biochemistry so the biochemistry can be completed at another institution online and actually our platform that we deliver our program on the edX platform. We have an online principles and biochemistry course which is an excellent one to take and you take that for the certificate, and you can use that to show demonstrate that you have some of that foundation knowledge in biochemistry that we require. And then what courses can you take to fulfill the requirement that we've discussed online courses. If you contact Stephanie and myself, we can give you some suggestions for some of the courses, and then implications for international students. We've talked about that basic knowledge. If you're international student I still would expect that you have had some biochemistry some physiology and had a little bit of nutrition knowledge. The undergraduate foundation that science related bachelor's degree I've talked about that a little bit. We've looked closely at your transcript and let you know what we recommend that you would take to be successful to repair you. If they have had a degree and we've had several successful students that are coming from possibly a business background. I very often have them start back with some basic chemistry at a community college, for example, to refresh their memory, they may not have had touched, they may not have touched their sciences for several years, and having a refresher course and one or two chemistry, or two courses and then obtain the biochemistry that will prepare them to be successful in the program. Now bachelors degrees earned outside the United States tend to be fine. They have to meet the requirement of our graduate school at the university, but most of them if they're a bachelor's degree accredited bachelor's degree they they are just fine, and do credits transfer. Only six graduate credits can transfer and they are at the discretion of our graduate faculty. They have to consider what you took and make sure that you are not missing out on any key material that our program offers that we feel is very important. So it is not guaranteed that the credits will transfer. You can obtain your transcripts from your college or university where you got what you have done all your education, and we want, even if you went to a community college prior to attending your four year degree for your school. You need to obtain all those transcripts and you need official transcripts for the admission process, you can obtain an official transcript and then upload a PDF of that transcript. You would need to then have an official transcript sent directly from that college or university before classes started after you have been admitted. The GPA, we call it a grad GPA needs to be a 3.0, but it just considers the upper division coursework that you took for your bachelor's degree. And record asking for recommendations, ideally we want at least one academic, more if possible. However, if you can't get academic ones we look for colleagues, especially if you're working in a healthcare environment, or a work supervisor would be another great offer, great option. And if you're international, you do need the TOEFL although there is a link, if you go to the UT website and go to international graduate students, you can obtain the list of countries that if you got your bachelor's degrees, you are exempt from leaving the TOEFL. Those are countries that where English is the primary language, and the GRE is not required. Students work except we tend to accept 60 to 80 students every year in a combination between the fall and spring semesters. You need to complete your prerequisites before your classes would start either in fall or spring whichever semester you're beginning the program. And for reviewing the application. We try to do admissions on a rolling basis and so as soon as your application is complete, we will we will evaluate your application so you should hear very soon within a week or two of the completed application. We'll talk about my status in just a minute but there's an easy way for you to monitor and see track how your application is getting put together. We currently are have applications open for the fall semester fall 2022. The application period will be open until July 15. The classes range from 10 or 12 up to 60. If you're in the core classes or if you're in the concentration classes. The face to face requirement there is no face to face requirement. This is synchronous. This is asynchronous learning there are no synchronous learning requirements. I say that, but what we do is once a week, the faculty will offer a sync one synchronous office hour where they will let you know in the week and during the week when it will be scheduled maybe seven o'clock in Wednesday evening. And there that they hosted on zoom, and everybody can come to an attend, and we, the faculty member will record that office hour, and then put that link on the course platform. So if you have to miss the office hour you can still hear what the material was covered. Also, if you cannot make the office hour and you need to meet with the faculty just shoot them an email, and they will set up a time with you to meet and discuss one on one. The assignments really vary. We have, this is a graduate program so there isn't a fair amount of writing. There is statistical work. We do in the two statistics classes. We do a little bit of programming to let you understand statistical analysis when you read studies. And then we have, I do a lot of study evaluations or summaries in my class and then I have students work on group projects together. There are a lot of discussions we break you up into cohorts so we want to hear some thoughts thoughts going to get in exchange on different subjects. But there are major papers in some courses, and then some courses, for example, Dr lashing her and her advanced nutritional sciences one. She does it. She calls it a jigsaw journal club where she has students work together in small groups and put together the knowledge they share, they obtain through a variety of different studies that they read. There are a few of the faculty may use a written exam, not, not many video lectures. The faculty record lectures that you watch as you move through the modules of material you, you might have one anywhere from one to five video lectures brief ones to watch. In addition to the written material. Again, as a science based graduate program. We have you use a lot of material from current literature current studies we want you reading the most current studies, and we want you discussing them and analyze them and taking what you need, need from those. So consequently, while we have some courses have textbooks that are required, not every course will have a textbook. For example, there is a basic textbook that advances in nutritional sciences one and two uses Dr lashing her and myself. We have the exact same textbook she uses the part for macronutrients I use the part for the micro nutrients, so the student only has to buy the one textbook but can use it for two classes. And the interaction with the faculty. It's, it's, you can regularly email them you can set up regular appointments once a week we have them on office hour. So it's based on what your need is. If you're trying to figure out which concentration might be right for you, I'd be thinking about what you plan to do with this degree. If you're doing more consulting you want to move into that personalized nutrition realm, or you're working currently in clinical realm or medical realm. You might very well want the biochemical and functional nutrition track. If your work is more with a community programs in the public health realm, or and nutrition education. Then you might very well want the health promotion disease prevention concentration, but we can chat more about that. We don't ask you to choose your concentration to the, to we get the classes started and you can actually change your mind after we get going. Is there a thesis option. Yes, there is. If you are going to do the thesis option we assign you to our mentor, and we usually start you out with Dr. Latia Hernandez and she discusses what kind of research analysis you would like to do. Since we are online, you're not going to be working in someone's lab you will be analyzing a data set. We asked that you take you choose the two year option to your track, if you're going to use it to do the thesis option to give yourself plenty of time. So should you choose the one year to your track I think it depends on how much time that you have available in your schedule. Everyone who was on the two year track currently has a full time job and is able to manage the coursework. People's not people on the one year track, I think they tend to need a little more time for we talked in an earlier slide that for if you're following the two year track you need 10 to 14 hours to devote to a class per week so if you're taking two classes at a time, as you would in the one year track, you need to have 20 to 28 hours available during the week to for your coursework to keep up. Which contemporary or controversial nutrition topics are covered. Oh my goodness disguise the limit. We love to take on some of the most current topics and controversies nutrition myths and bust those myths and give you the skills to evaluate the literature and know when it might be false information so their wide variety. And then what are students favorite courses. Well, I think, even though it's a tough class Dr lashing or has a lot of popularity. Dr digraph reads molecular nutrition is also very popular. I've heard wonderful things about Dr jolly's nutrition and immunology. There are several really great courses nutritionomics is fascinating and food is medicine is excellent. And then if we look at the career what career paths to graduates tend to pursue. There are, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a variety but it's not a as wide a variety. As you might see some other majors because nutrition really does define with either within healthcare, nutrition education and center and in businesses centered around food. Our students have been nutrition education, they have done count they've gone into counseling, and several of our students have been already been working in clinical nutrition and have brought in their skills for that, and then other medical professionals. And is the curriculum relevant for careers outside the United States. Yes they are. However, I, we are not familiar with some of the credential requirements for certain positions. The master's of science in nutrition science can certainly be used for positions out in outside of the United States. This is excellent preparation for moving on to additional degrees or for example students wanting to apply to medical school dental school or pharmacy school, having nutrition science background really helps you better understand what's going on through disease and this master's degree does not prepare you to sit for the registered dietitians exam unless credentialing exam, unless you have already taken the required didactic undergraduate coursework and completed the dietetic internship the supervised practice hours. So if you have done both of those, then you take the math this master's degree can help you sit for the exam. We have had several students that have used this master's degree to improve their chances for matching to a dietetic internship and then once they but they have done the, they have come into the master's degree already having satisfied the undergraduate requirement of coursework to be a registered dietitian. Again, if you want to have more information about that please contact us, I can tell you I can take you in more detail about that. But the board certified nutrition specialist to be a CNS. This is one of the degrees that masters of science and human nutrition is the required master's degree for that to be do become a CNS. It is the academic portion of this certification, you still would need to do supervised hours under a supervisor that has to be authorized by the board of certification for nutrition specialist. We do not offer that part because we are an online program. We are not in the position to be able to connect you to help you to do that networking for you. I can offer guidance on how to do some of the networking, just some suggestions that in general that I offer other my regular students. Networking is an important part to find those people that you can work with, but the book the board of certification of nutrition specialist. Their personnel will help you find your supervisors and they are in charge of your supervised hours. This program is not it is just one of the academic it satisfies the academic criteria for the for the credential. The tuition is $22,500 for coursework for the coursework only. We have fees every semester these are student fees the total you would end up paying is between $3,000 and $4,000 over the course of the one year or two year track program. Payment options in general tuition and fees are paid at the beginning of every semester. There are ways to work out payment plans. If you work through the financial aid office, and this program is eligible for financial aid, we do not have any scholarships were still a young program and growing so our scholarship opportunities are not are not there at this time, we're working to get that. So, as a professional students, always a question about submitting assignments in different time zones. When you look at our program, we plan the program in UTC time. So when you open your, your class on the edX platform, you will see your assignments listed in your local time zone to let you know when the assignments are due. We base things on being handed in on central time since that's where we are. So the, you will see the adjusted time zone for your for handing in your courses, since we work it would do plan assignments with plan them in UTC time. And then admissions guidance if you email Stephanie or myself, we can help give you some guidance on the admissions process and, and let's talk about that a little more now. So let's get started on that application. So to apply to text UT you go to go apply texas.org, and at that site you create an account or a login or you log in if you already have an account if you've been to the site before. You select create a new application, and then select create a new graduate school admissions application in the target university section choose University of Texas at Austin. In the type of application choose the most appropriate and that would be if you're an international student choose for the international application or for in residence. And then you select fall 2022 for the semester of entry. And you scroll down to natural sciences and select nutritional sciences option three online master's program. And then you continue on with the application. To submit the graduate application and play and pay the fee. This will automatically create a my status account. I mentioned this earlier. Within my status you have portals that you can then upload the required transcripts the resume the personal statement within the graduate application you would have supplied the names of three recommendations. And we want them to ideally be academic but they don't have to be. And they get a notification by email immediately upon when you open and start your application and open up and get a my status account. So please, the polite thing to do is ask your letters of recommendation people ahead of time let them know that I'm going to put your name in. Would you be willing to write a letter of recommendation. And they have a spot a portal within within your my status that that you can see when they have uploaded your letter of recommendation. So you can track the whole application. You know, exactly what you need to do what you still have left to do so if you wonder why you haven't heard but this, you know, go check my status. If you have any kinds of questions or problems with it. There is a link at the graduate application page that you can ask your questions about the transcript specifically or any questions you have in general about the application process. If you are here to help, there's some different emails on the website, and we have our personal emails down below and as I said, I and Stephanie hunces would be the best people if you have questions about the application process, and about the program in general would love to answer your questions and help you with the process.