A little about me:
I did not follow a straight path to becoming a dietitian, in fact, I graduated with a bachelor of arts in communications. When I graduated from college I was switching gears- I was determined to become a master chef. At the ripe age of 22 I dove head first into the unfamiliar world of food service, switching books for knives I worked as a line cook until the early hours of the morning for months. After several years of weaving my way through different culinary positions, I realized that although my love for cooking was eternal, I had a different mission in life. I left the food service industry and went back to books, taking the GRE, a year of prerequisite courses, until I finally started my masters program in human nutrition at Drexel University.
When starting graduate school, I decided not to fill my resume with small bullets, and instead searched for long-term opportunities where I would observe different facets of dietetics. I spent time in the ICU at Lankenau hospital, counseling outpatient bariatric patients at a private practice, observing childhood obesity challenges at CHOP's healthy weight program, and encouraging women of all ages to be strong and healthy while teaching fitness classes at the Lithe Method.
All of these experiences helped prepare me for the many roles a dietitian must play: the therapist, the teacher, the doctor, and friend.
Through the Sodexo dietetic internship I have been able to expand the skills I had been developing throughout my professional years. This program exposed me to the wide spectrum of medical nutrition therapy through my rotations at Virtua Voorhees hospital, Cooper University hospital, and Hahnemann hospital. I used my MNT concentration to get as much ICU experience as possible. During that time I spent three weeks at Cooper University hospital's trauma center, where I worked with patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries. I enjoyed the TICU so much, that I crafted my professional research presentation on feeding the traumatic brain injury patient based on my time there. My food service rotation was at Campbell's Soup Corporate, where Sodexo runs a cafe serving nearly 1,200 people daily. I also spent time volunteering at WIC, MANNA, and other crucial nutrition-oriented community programs in the Greater Philadelphia area.
