How to survive nutrition graduate school without losing your sanity
Meg Bowman MS CNS LDN CHES
If you’re in graduate school, you have at least 17 YEARS of experience being a student. And yet, going back to school as an adult can be a struggle. With all the extra responsibilities that come with adulthood, you’re likely to feel a little like a juggler, constantly tossing balls in the air that you hope to catch later. Balancing assignments, deadlines, meetings, and a personal life requires top-notch management skills. And on top of that is the whole “career change” thing that brings with it an extra level of complexity. Let’s talk about how to manage.
Don’t just complete assignments, plan for the future. One of my biggest regrets in grad school was that as a career changer, I didn’t understand what nutrition practice looked like while in school, and therefore I didn’t tackle assignments in a way that would not only help me pass the course, but would also set me up for future practice. What do I mean by this? What do you do now when you look up a study that says that 300 grams of magnesium is effective for xyz health condition? If you are like me, I bet you just use it to complete a school assignment, but don’t actually DO anything with that information. Trust me, you’re going to wish you had access to all those gems when you get into practice. Download an editable copy of my planner and learn to take notes in a way that can benefit future you.
Stop trying to learn everything. I get it, you feel like you don’t know enough. But trust me that the answer isn’t wearing yourself out trying to attend expensive online trainings or participate in multiple certification programs at once. All that is going to do is make you feel exhausted and overwhelmed. Instead, try this. Create a way to store protocols. Some people have a protocols feature in their electronic medical record (we use Practice Better), other people create folders in Google Drive. Regardless of where you locate the information, make a protocol or folder for every condition that you encounter a training or online video. If you don’t have a client right now with that condition, consider putting the hyperlink in your protocol or folder. You’ll know where to look for that training later, and won’t need to recreate the wheel. Ditto for studies you’ve found online. You don’t need to read them now. You just need to locate them when you need ‘em. Dump them in a folder or protocol and move on!
“Create a way to store protocols.”
Understand you’re learning a new language. Because truly, you are. The way you talk about nutrition is a new language, and just like high school Spanish, you’re going to feel like an idiot at first. Conversations will be hard. Translating science into what a client can understand will be hard. Knowing how much to say and when to stop will be hard. Because you’re learning a new language. But if you keep going, you’ll not only learn the language, but you’ll become as comfortable talking about nutrition as you do talking to friends.
You can get through nutrition grad school with your sanity intact! Embrace the chaos (just a little), plan for the future, and save valuable learnings for later. You’re not here to be a nutrition encyclopedia, so organize resources so you don’t drown in information overload. And remember, you’ve learned a new language in the past, and will learn this one too, with enough practice and patience. You got this!
XOXO Meg