Featured Student: Meet Janet!

Hello AAI BlogReaders!!

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday break filled with family, friends, fun, good health, plenty of relaxation, and sleep!  As you know, the spring semester is right around the corner, and I am very excited to share with you that I am the Featured Student Blogger this semester. 

My name is Janet Zimmerman, and I am a Junior Health and Human Performance Major with a concentration in Dietetics at the University of Memphis.  I am the President of the Student Dietetics Association and also have an internship with a private practice RD in Memphis.  I have a passion and love for all things food and nutrition and am a huge fan of helping people experience health naturally through Intuitive Eating (great book by Evelyn Tribole, MA, RD and Elyse Resch, MA, RD, FADA for those of you that have not read it). 

Through the Featured Student Blog, I hope to share some of my Dietetic experiences to help you make the most of your education and the internship process.  Since I love all things nutrition, I also love getting to know other Dietetic students (you all) and helping you find out what you are passionate about.  I believe knowing your passions and abilities allows you to set goals so that you can reach your dreams. 

My top three pieces of advice to Dietetics students are:

1) Get the most experience you can! This includes work or volunteer experience in all the different fields of dietetics.  Try out many different positions including: clinical, food preparation, food safety, food banks, sports nutrition, diabetes, nutrition education, pediatrics, eating disorders, etc.  Find out the areas you love while you’re in school so that you can know a good fit for your internship.

2) Network with Dietitians and Dietetic students alike.  We can learn so much from each other and also encourage and push one another toward our goals.

3) Don’t Slack off in school! As you well know, internships are very competitive.  To put our best foot forward, we need to start off strong in school and stay strong throughout our education.

There will be much more on these three pieces of advice and more to come.  If you ever have any questions or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you by email jzmmrman@memphis.edu or on twitter @JanetZimmerman.  Remember, start the semester off strong and with purpose this semester.  Each day is a day closer to your goals.