Nutrition 201 Reflection Nutrition 201 was my first nutrition course outside of high school and it was an eye

opening experience. I had the mistaken notion that a degree in Nutrition would not require much science but it seems this course is only the beginning. My previous understanding of nutrition prior to this course was simple calories-in-calories-out and eat your vegetables type of understanding however, the lecturer for this this course, Yumi Petrisko, made it clear that the degree path I was following would be so much more than that. Yumi focused much on the biological aspects of nutrition along with discussing foods. Yumi lectured on topics each class meeting that were continually full of new information for me. This course was my first college course in which I not only studied biological functions within the body but did so on very specific processes such as the Krebs Cycle/Citric Acid Cycle. Any cycle within the body I did not have any knowledge of before I took this course. Given my prior thoughts of nutrition I was unprepared for this course but I still managed to excel which gave me hope for the upcoming science courses. While the science aspect was intriguing and somewhat difficult for me, I also really enjoyed the common misconceptions that Yumi took the time to debunk about nutrition and even having a guest speaker come that worked in the sports nutrition field. The guest speaker showed us common questions posed and answers given in online forums and the impact the we as students could make in the future by spreading correct information.

Nutrition 203 Reflection Nutrition 203 presented me with a concept that I had not previously considered, the cultural aspects of food. Having lived in San Diego, California for quite a few year at this point I had become accustomed to having an array of foods around me from almost everything culture. Instead of considering what foods were like for other cultures, I had assumed that each culture was equally as exposed to various cultural foods just as I had been but I was wrong. While there are outside exposures and influences to almost all cultures, not all of these cultures are as welcoming to different foods as others. For example, the north eastern area of the United States tends to eat foods with muted tastes/less spices than some other places like the southern states. It is unlikely to find much fusion in the northern east states with large amounts of spices because many of the people might not eat them. Since I have lived all over the U.S. and eaten all kinds of food, I was unaware that people were not all as open to food as I had been brought up to be. By the end of this course I was convinced I had to study abroad to learn more about other cultures and their diets. I felt that in order to understand and work in the Nutrition field in a melting pot society such as San Diego, I would have to be exposed to other cultures on a wider scale to be able to give adequate nutrition advice in the future. I wanted to be able to give advice based on nutritional knowledge that was not based strictly on Westernized dietary bias. I believe I learned very valuable information in this class. The differing of cultures and their differing nutritional beliefs within their cultures changed my entire educational outlook and the specific path I wanted to take. This course changed my outlook and certainly for the better.

Nutrition 205 Reflection Prior to taking this course I was unaware of the roles different ingredients played in any recipe. I did not know the role of butter when making a pie crust, the role of eggs when making a foam, the reason for salt in any baked product, what dictated the standards for what a certain ice cream could be called, or even that standards what existed within the US which regulated every food and what is needed to call that food by a certain name. While inside the lecture room I studied these ideals and while in the lab, I got to see them come to life. Prior to this course I was not much of a cook however, not for lack of try but rather for lack of knowledge. In addition to not knowing basic properties of ingredients in recipes, I also was unaware of the cooking times and temperatures different meats should reach before they are considered done. This lack of knowledge left me to my own devices when it came to cooking which meant anything that was precooked or only required a microwave amount of heating. During and following this course I became much more knowledgeable and much more motivated to start cooking on my own. Since taking this course I have become a regular meal cooker and even at times, a baker. In addition to becoming a frequent cook, I can not only produce meals and baked goods, I could also modify those recipes to make them healthier versions. I could then take these recipes and then pass them on to other people including friends, family, and acquaintances to assist them in improving their usual diets. I gained the useful skill of cooking and modifying recipes from the Nutrition 205 course. This is a skill I will continue to use throughout my future career and my life. I am sure it will become a service skill that will only become more meaningful over time.

Nutrition 301 Reflection Nutrition 301 provided a well-rounded and informational lecture. Each lecture meeting Linda Copp not only presented chapter materials from the textbook for the course but she also presented recent nutritional news including, recent studies from journal articles, news articles, and nutrition based magazines. This gave a great up-to-date, real, and relevant insight into the nutritional interests in the world and the real life issues we as nutrition students could be dealing with in the near future. In this course we completed a career paper which required that we research different career path option available to graduates with the Nutrition degree with the except that the careers could not be clinical. Considering most students enrolled in the 301 course are following the path to becoming a Registered Dietitian, it was refreshing to focus on career options outside of the clinical field and it became very enlightening. As someone who enjoys going abroad, I took this opportunity to research career opportunities outside of the United States and found that there are quite a few options available both outside of clinical settings and the US. This career search even aided me in my interest to pursue a possible Masters Degree in Public Health which would be useful in conjunction with a Nutrition degree while working abroad in possibly underdeveloped countries around the world. I truly appreciated the real life insight offered in the course which related to specific topics that nutrition professionals deal with and counsel patients on on a day to day basis. Additionally, I really enjoyed researching other potential careers. This course gave me a new possible career path that I might not have realized existed before.

Nutrition 302 Lecture & 302 Lab Reflection Dr. Mark Kerns nutrition lecture seemed to be the capstone element from quite a few building block classes. As a Foods & Nutrition Major, I have taken other science based courses including Nutrition 201, a 100 level biology course, 100 level chemistry course, biological chemistry, organic chemistry, physiology, and microbiology which all showed their faces within this course. During each of those science courses I had surely as one time or another wondered why I needed to study that information as a Nutrition Major and this course made all of those reasons. The Nutrition 302 lecture gave a biological insight to all of the bodily processes that I had been studying for years and put them all together. Dr. Kern presented the relevance to the nutrition field with ease. In addition to the 302 lecture, the 302 lab offered nutrition students the opportunity to not only study the processes but also test some of these processes themselves in a lab. Nutrition 302 lab has been my favorite course at San Diego State University thus far. I enjoyed experiencing different blood testing types, recording the results, and understanding their meanings. Following each experiment we would case study write-ups which involved writing an NCP (Nutrition Care Process) note which was my first exposure to what treating a patient with a nutritional issue would be like. Additionally, the class research study and manuscript provided a great foundation for future paper writings in undergraduate or graduate studies. I found this course and the lab to be exceptionally informative. The experience of working in a lab and performing blood tests was irreplaceable in my educational career at San Diego State University.

Nutrition 303 Reflection Linda Copp was the lecturer for Nutrition 303. During this course Linda presented many different aspects of food service systems including the way a kitchen should be run, how it should be set up, and the many different types of kitchens that foodservice systems use. As a part of this course we were required to design our own food service system and select the correct kitchen choice. For our project we chose to create a fondue restaurant. Our restaurant setting called for much research regard food sources, restaurant location, and employment. We opted to serve only local, organic, and seasonal products. To make this work we researched many different options for suppliers. Following the selection of suppliers we then had to contact each supplier and negotiate an agreement for what prices we would be paying. While at this point I do not intend to go into the food service industry, I found this project to be particularly interesting. I really enjoyed getting creative with the project and selecting our location and coming up back a background story. Perhaps what I could see myself using in the future however, is the pricing skills that I acquired. My favorite part about this project was conducting the research on various potential suppliers, comparing their best price offerings, and even visiting the suppliers farms or production facility to make an informed decision. This was the first food service course I took that really delved into the industry. Despite this not being my immediate nutritional interest I enjoyed everything I learned from this course. In the future I may be working in a kitchen that could be in any setting and what Ive learned in this course would be applicable.

Nutrition 304 Reflection Nutrition Throughout the Lifespan was a first of its kind for me. A large focus of this course revolved around childhood and adolescence. As the youngest in my family and no children of my own yet, this was all news to me. I had not been around any babies, young children, teenagers, etc. except myself but I surely was not studying my own growth or nutritional needs. Dr. Mee Young Hong provided great insight as she had her own children to relate the lectures to. She periodically gave anecdotes which brought the lectures to life by giving real life examples for us to relate to. From this course I learned nutritional information that would not only help me in my career but also in my own life. If and when I have children in the future, I feel much more equipped to provide them the correct nutritious foods in addition to being able to spot some signs and symptoms of nutritional deficiencies that may occur in my children. We not only studied children but adults as well. In this course we were required to create a fictional patient with specific needs or disorders. My group created a girl named Anuh that had pre-diabetes. After giving Anuh a personality, needs, and some biological disorders, we created an entire diet plan and behavior modification plan as well. This was very similar to what I may do in the future when working with patients. When counseling someone it is very likely that I would work with someone that is a pre-diabetic and needs not only a dietary plan but also help with making lifestyle changes as well. I think this project was very practical and a great preparation for future possible career situations.

Nutrition 404 Reflection As a Business Administration Minor, Nutrition 404 was particularly interesting to me. I have been taking business courses for three years when I began taking this course and was intrigued by hearing the foodservice side of business/management administration. I was also excited to use the business foundation I had already been building in my educational career outside of nutrition. For this course we were required to make a business plan. This business plan would be much like the project from Nutrition 301 but with a much larger business aspect. For this project we still selected suppliers, made a budget, picked a location for the foodservice organization, made a menu, etc. However, this project called for more financial statements and emphasis. For this project we created a balance sheet, budget, profit & loss statement. An application for a small business loan, and created a management hierarchy along with assigning salaries to all employees. Although this course does provide some of the knowledge to accomplish these tasks, I felt more prepared for this project because of my business minor which also included accounting courses and courses on ethics/human resources. I do not necessarily see myself as the manager of a foodservice organization but it was nice to see how such an organization would be run. I do however see the possibility of myself working in some sort of management profession in the future and I saw this course as a great addition to not only my minor but also my major. This project and course was definitely a useful preparatory course for the future.

Nutrition 409 Reflection This course was easily one of my favorite courses Ive had at San Diego State University. For the majority of this course we have visited Registered Dietitians at their place of work which has included various hospitals. Upon talking to some Foods & Nutrition Majors from other universities in California I learned that they are not given the same opportunity which is a shame considering I found it to be so informative. Before taking this course I had heard that the options for full time work for Registered Dietitians coming out of their internship is often difficult to find and that most go into consulting for a period of time before they settle in a full time position, if they do. The thought of this had previously made me very nervous however, one of the guest speakers we saw as a class put my mind at ease about this possibility. In fact, I now think that consulting may be my career path of choice instead of a full time career simply based on the open schedule this guest speaker mentioned having. In addition to listening to guest speakers, this class also provided case study/NCP experience that was more clinically based than I had previously worked with in other course. If I do pursue a clinical career, it is very likely I will be presented with very similar, if not the same, diseases and symptoms in patients. This has practical and useful experience for the future. This is also the course where I created my career portfolio. After a bit of deliberation I opted to make an online portfolio as opposed to a large binder so the last bit of knowledge I received for Nutrition 409 was a crash course in website creation. Surely this skill will be useful for many years to come and in many different areas of my career.

Nutrition 510 Reflection During the semester I was taking Nutrition 510 I was also just beginning an internship with the San Diego State Research Foundation. As an intern, part of my responsibilities fell on community outreach which made this course very fitting, especially for the time being. My community involvement meant teaching people within Hispanic communities the value of nutrition and how to incorporate nutrient dense foods into their diet instead of empty calorie foods. Nutrition 510 provided me with social tools that I may not have had previously. Part of the assignments for the course was to perform a mock counseling session. In this session we were critiqued on our professional presence and our ability to counsel the patient appropriately. I found myself using these counseling tools during every community outreach event I was involved with in the future. I am however most appreciative of the time I spent at WIC (Women Infants & Children) observing classes, observing counseling sessions, and teaching classes on my own. When someone is being counseled their diet and the questions they may pose are unpredictable and that was perhaps my most valuable lesson, to always be prepared and professional. There are many myths passed through families, media, friends, etc. and while giving people correct information may not be a difficult task, convincing them of the inaccuracies in nutritional information they have been told their entire lives certainly can be very challenging. When I decided I wanted to study Nutrition, I knew this was the risk but I am excited to pass on everything I have learned to others in any setting, clinical or community. Nutrition 510 prepared me to take on this difficult task.