Emily Parent

“I fell in love with the GPIDEA program offerings as I have been able to take many community-based nutrition classes as opposed to other universities that offered mostly clinical nutrition-based courses.”

-Emily Parent

Masters creative component helps Emily Parent with career aspirations

Emily has heard the benefits of eating healthy ever since her time as a cross-country runner. Now, she hopes to use her time as an online, part-time graduate student with a focus on dietetics and turn the knowledge into a full-time career helping her community.

“My heart is in community nutrition and wellness,” she said. “I fell in love with the GPIDEA program offerings as I have been able to take many community-based nutrition classes as opposed to other universities that offered mostly clinical nutrition-based courses.”

As a retail dietitian for a Minnesota-based grocery chain, Emily provides shoppers with nutritional information through cooking demonstrations, seminars, and materials. Emily has taken her work one step further through her master’s creative component, a weight management program for her company.

“Weight management has always been an interest for me,” she said. “Previously, my company had no stable wellness program for their 8,000 employees, and I was able to develop a program to reach our employees in all five Midwestern states.”

Emily started the wellness program with basic step challenges and water challenges, but she hopes to expand on the program.

“I love the work I do. However, because our program is so new and so small, there is much more room to grow the program and grow within the company,” she said. “A master’s degree in family and consumer sciences with an emphasis in dietetics would not only give me the education needed to expand my responsibilities but would also let me leverage my degree when applying to management positions.”