It’s easy to think Bumpers College and our careers are all about agriculture, but we also include the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Several options there are related to food, including human nutrition and dietetics.
Nancy Buckley is one of our instructors, and she’s a three-time U of A graduate. S
he earned her bachelor’s in communication in 1989, another bachelor’s in human nutrition and hospitality innovation with a dietetics concentration in 2014, and her master’s in human environmental sciences in 2016.
“I love food and nutrition,” she says. “I had a small business where I catered meals for people with special diets. I followed recipes from cookbooks like the American Heart Association or the American Cancer Society. I decided to return to the university, at age 47, to get a degree in dietetics. As a student, I was asked to be the lab assistant and that’s when I discovered a love for teaching.”
If you have an interest in food, but agriculture isn’t your thing, graduates in this program can become a Registered Dietitian, but that’s not the only option. “Students can also sit for the Nutrition and Dietetic Technician Registration exam, which is what I did. There are various positions in the food and health industry that employ people with a degree in dietetics, and of course education.”
An expectant salary range for first-year graduates is $40-50,000.
“I consider myself to be a culinary dietitian and an educator,” Buckley, who is from Stuttgart, Arkansas, says. “I think the dietetics field is growing. People are making the connection between the food that we put in our bodies and disease.”
What are some other things you can do with this degree? “I teach students who go on to teach others about food and nutrition. Obesity, for example, is a huge issue right now. I think if people had the skills to plan, shop for, and cook their own meals, they would rely less on fast foods, which are usually higher in fat, sodium, cholesterol and total calories.”
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