Thinking of Graduate School? There are a variety of graduate‐level programs that Applied Human Nutrition students might consider. Here are a few questions to help you to plan your graduate study experience. The first questions you need to ask yourself are do you love learning and are you ready for more academic study? If you love to learn in an academic setting, gaining a deeper knowledge of specific aspects of nutrition or life sciences, then a graduate degree may be right for you. I want to learn more theory and application of nutrition before starting my post‐academic career. What can you tell me about this? Your undergraduate degree has prepared you well for a variety of research experiences. There are several ways to discover your interests. What courses did you enjoy the most? When you review research articles, what intrigues you about the research? Look at the authors of these research papers: what departments do they work in, what graduate degrees do they have? What are the requirements to enter graduate study in their department? Researchers love to talk about their research and the path they have taken. Send them an email message to ask what steps you should take to get into this area of research. I really enjoyed learning about nutrients and how they work in the body. I got excited about nutrition in my NUTR*1010 class and really enjoyed the biochem course work. What graduate program would be best for me? Basic nutritional sciences or biochemistry degrees would work well if you are analytical and interested in learning new skills in laboratory work. If you are considering this avenue, try to volunteer with a prof working in these areas or do an undergraduate thesis. Useful electives are those that have a laboratory component where you are working with reagents, biochemical analysis kits etc. Individuals who pursue these degrees could continue on to become doctoral level researchers. I really enjoyed my community‐based nutrition courses, such as Family and Community Nutrition (NUTR*2050) and am interested in why people eat what they eat and how this affects their health. What graduate program would be best for me? There are several community nutrition graduate programs in nutrition education and community nutrition that do not involve a thesis and are one‐year degrees. They provide a way of deepening your skills as a community planner or health promoter, focusing on program development, implementation and evaluation. A masters in health science (MHSc) can also train you to work in the public health field as a public health nutritionist. Public health nutritionists are involved in planning and implementing community‐level nutrition prevention programs. If what has interested you in these community courses is tracking the prevalence and studying why nutrition problems occur, then perhaps a degree t hat focuses on population health and surveillance is right for you. Some community health programs and especially epidemiology programs provide a strong basis in research methods and measurement of health. Canada is rapidly improving its population surveillance capacity. There are several graduate programs in Canada that provide a strong background in population health and research. Epidemiologists are employed at public health units to oversee research and use population level data to plan community‐level programs. Your nutrition degree would be a good complement to this degree. I really enjoyed my research methods course and/or statistics courses. What graduate program would be best for me? Again, a graduate degree in epidemiology, community health and/or biostatistics would enable you to develop your research methodology skills. Most programs have a strong component of both population health research methods and statistics and you can select graduate courses that provide you with a specific expertise (e.g., measurement). Many job opportunities are available at the master’s level, for example, being an epidemiologist at a public health unit, research associate in a faculty of health or medicine, or project coordinator for a multi‐centre clinical trial. A master’s degree in Epidemiology could also be a stepping stone to a doctorate in nutrition, public health, statistics or degrees offered through medical faculties. If you are interested in this potential career path, doing an undergraduate thesis would be helpful to start your research career. I really enjoyed the foods courses in my program, specifically those that focused on the constituents of food and how food can be enriched to promote health (e.g. functional foods). What graduate program would be best for me? A food science degree may be appropriate for you. Food scientists are diverse, and applied nutrition skills are a good complement to this area of study. You may need to look carefully at the requirements for entry into some of these graduate level programs, as they typically require some laboratory level experience in foods. Food safety is another area of research. I really enjoyed learning about how we try to get individuals to change their behaviour so that they have better health. What graduate programs would be appropriate for me? Programs in social psychology, psychology and applied human nutrition may be good choices. Choosing an advisor to oversee your skill development who is interested in these areas of study as they apply to food intake will be important. Many applied human nutrition researchers are doing research that has this focus. Look at their list of publications on departmental websites to get a sense of their research interests. Look for ‘behaviour change’, ‘psychosocial ‘, ‘nutrition education’ and other key words. Researchers who focus on physical activity may also be a good complement, especially if they are researching behaviour change. Graduate programs in psychology may require further undergraduate preparation than your BASc degree provides and most often, master’s level researchers go on to a doctorate. There is also a recently‐created Masters of Health Science in Nutrition Communication, offered at Ryerson University in Toronto. This may be the degree for you if you are interested in learning advanced knowledge and skills in the interpretation and communication of nutrition and food issues to audiences that range from small, via individual and group counseling, to large, via traditional mass media and new media. I really enjoyed learning about how we treat various diseases nutritionally or how we assess nutritional status. What degree would be appropriate for me? A graduate degree in Applied Human Nutrition that provides you with a background in clinical or community nutrition is best for you. Investigate who is doing this kind of research; who is an expert in nutrition assessment methods such as body composition analysis, development of screening tools, or how we integrate nutrition into primary health care? Who is interested in developing or evaluating nutrition interventions for a specific population group? If these questions interest you, there are several programs in Canada and the United States that will further develop your skills. Graduates of these programs are employed in industry, often go on to internships or further their graduate training.