How do you become a Registered Dietitian?
More Answers From Nutritionist Degree Graduates
Video Transcript
Host Question: How do you become a registered dietitian? What are the prerequisites that exist, what degrees, certifications are required and how long does the process usually take from start to finish?
Lauren’s Answer
Guest Answer: To become a registered dietitian, you have to get your bachelor’s degree. Generally it’s in something related like human nutrition and food science, dietetics, and then after that, you are matched to a dietetic internship. So it’s an accredited internship with, you know, it might be a university.
Guest Answer: There are a lot of them to choose from, you kind of apply and they match you and then you get matched to one and do that. So it’s generally less than a year, but it’s nine hundred to twelve hundred hours, where you’re just going through all these rotations and working with different receptors in the industry and learning, really all kinds of things to give you an idea of what you might be interested in doing afterward. When you’re done with your internship, then you sit for the RD exam. Pass that, then you have your RD credential, and then you have to maintain your RD. So you’re doing seventy five continuing education credits every five years after that to maintain it.
Guest Answer: Anyone that’s interested in becoming a registered dietitian previously could have a bachelor of science degree and then move forward with the process. That is changing, and they are now setting a minimum of a master’s degree for dietitians.
Guest Answer: And so you would get a master’s science typically, a lot of these programs starting in January twenty twenty four are going to be a combined achelor Masters program, so you’re looking about five years of time commitment for the education.
Guest Answer: After that, degree process every dietitian to be needs to be accepted into and complete a dietetic internship program.
Guest Answer: And most of those programs are on the low end, nine months, most are about twelve months of time. Depending on where you live, it can be very competitive.
Guest Answer: In Ohio, Cincinnati, specifically, when I went through that, there were three internship programs in Cincinnati, They were highly competitive.
Guest Answer: You may need to take a gap year after you’ve finished your master’s degree and get a little more hands on work actually in a nutrition field area to be considered a candidate for an internship. Once you complete your internship, then you sit for a national registration exam and pass that and you’re a dietitian.
Guest Answer: You must complete a four year bachelor’s program. And within this bachelor’s program, you have to have what they call DPD courses. So These are those courses that pretty much everyone that wants to become a dietitian across the board will have taken. Some degree program some bachelor programs have these kind of built into their programs, whereas some programs may not have them, and then you have to go back and take those courses. You then starting next year will have to have a master’s degree also, so then you will have to enter a master’s program, which can vary in length, but typically around two years, and then you’ll also have to complete a dietetic internship.
Guest Answer: And after all of that, you then sit for an exam if you pass your exam, you can call yourself a registered dietitian.
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