First Year Dietetics: Subject Summary

This is not a typical short and sweet update. It’s going to be a long one which is kind of rare for me these days. Okay, I know I’ve been writing about my undergraduate life a lot but this post is strictly to talk about my program, Bachelor Science (Dietetics). As I just recently finished my first year, I’m going to talk about what I’ve basically learnt.

            

Before we start, let me just give some facts. I am an undergraduate in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), currently studying Dietetics. I went to an interview in May 2015. There were 2000 applicants, about 100 of them were called to be interviewed and eventually only 29 of us were chosen before another 3 were brought in for the second intake. So, there are 32 of us. I did go to another interview for the same program at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) which I obviously flunked. This was surprising because I found the interview at UPM to be much harder and thorough. The interview took 30 minutes when in contrast, the UKM interview only took like 10 minutes tops. So, I registered on 29^th of August the same year and ended my first year on the 25^th of June 2016.

           

            Now, there were four main subjects for the first semester namely, Principle of Human Nutrition, Basic Medical Biochemistry, Introduction to Human Physiology and Human Anatomy.

           

For Principle of Human Nutrition, I learnt about nutrients. All the vitamins and minerals. What are the effects of deficiencies and excessive nutrients to the body. Basic Medical Biochemistry was a bit tough. I was never a Chemistry genius but I actually love Biology. I basically learnt about metabolisms of all kinds of macronutrients (ex: carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism, protein metabolism). It is fine if you understand but it takes a while for one to really fully absorb the pathways of these metabolism processes. We had lab practical every week too which I am not a fan of. I do not actually fancy research work because I find them too time-consuming and it feels like I can do so many other things instead. Lab reports were weekly group work.

           

On the other hand, Introduction to Human Physiology was much easier to tackle. If you took Biology in high school, chances are you have been thought about all the body processes/systems like circulatory system, respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, etc. Only that you will be taught about more detailed information and that is the tricky part. For Human Anatomy, you will be seeing the exact same figures as what you see in Introduction to Human Physiology, but instead of the bodily functions and how the body works, you will be learning about body structures. This could be hard because there are lots of them but I personally think it was an interesting subject. Not like Basic Medical Biochemistry, I actually enjoyed the practical for Human Anatomy because they did not only involve laboratory experiments (none actually) but we revised what we had learned in class to see if we can identify body structures and memorize them. In addition, there were no lab reports to be passed on. That is always a plus. Much better, we were given the chance to see real cadavers. Fun fact: Us Dietetics students and our Human Anatomy classmates, the Nursing students were the few of the earliest first year students to ever enter Anatomy Dissection Hall. Not even our Medic batch mates had set foot in there during the first semester which was funny because we are supposed to be related to food and they are the ones who should be seeing cadavers xD

            

I also took 3 mandatory university subjects, Human and Agriculture, Ethnic Relations and Malaysia Nationhood. To graduate, these subjects need to be taken. In addition, I did my LAX during this semester too. LAX is an English related subject which involves speaking skills and it is also mandatory. Every semester, there will be a subject related to English. It is either CEL, LAX or BBI. This is determined based on your MUET band. As I got band 5, I need not take BBI (usually 3hrs class every week, with presentations and final exam) but I need to take CEL (usually 2hrs class every week, no final exam, just assignments) and LAX (no classes, group work to be passed on to an instructor via online system, mainly involve speaking tasks). First semester LAX was Movie Review in which I meet my group members (randomly chosen, not always from the same programs, different band levels is possible), decided 3 movies to watch based on a 100- movies list given by our instructor, watch them and make movie reviews in a discussion that we record to be sent to our instructor online.

            For the second semester, there were 6 main subjects; Nutrition Throughout Life Cycle, Basic Medical Microbiology, Principles of Food Preparation, Human Genetics, Nutritional and Health Assessment, and Introduction to Psychology.

            

To start off, let’s talk about Nutrition Throughout Life Cycle. This subject is about the nutrition requirements in relation to life stages. For pregnant mothers, infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, adults and elderly. Depending on the nutrients needed, we studied how the eating patterns are for each stage. We also learnt about diseases in relation to the age. Basic Medical Microbiology on the other hand, we learnt about microorganisms. Bacteria, viruses and fungi. Pathogenesis, diseases caused by bacteria and viruses, and so on. In my personal opinion, it was not one of my favourite subjects. I just found it very hard to memorize tongue-twisting nomenclatures of microorganisms. For the lab practical, we mostly observed lab assistant doing procedures while answering her questions and occasionally given the chance to try some methods ourselves.

            

Next, Principles of Food Preparation. We studied about food. Fats, vegetables, fruits, starches, flour, cakes, pastries, milk, eggs, sweeteners, frozen beverages, etc. Food origins, types of food, preparation methods, nutrients in the food and food storage were some of the things we learnt. I really love the lab practical because we got to cook. Our lecturer will tell us what will each group do each week and we will be following the recipes from the cookbook that she wrote. Cooking is always a pleasure for me. After everyone had finish cooking, we presented our finished products to the class. Talk about its nutritional value, the procedures of making it, the result, the science behind the particular cooking method and ingredients used and then we conclude the presentation. After all the groups had presented, everyone gets ready to run towards the food and gobble up. That is actually the fun part in addition to the cooking process. For Human Genetics, well, we learnt about DNA, DNA mutations, diseases related to DNA abnormalities, etc. The practical was the hardest because the given instructions were written like essays. Sometimes, it got too confusing that we procrastinated a lot before finally doing them. But then, there were fun activities too. We got to build DNA models, self-made creatures from recycled material, etc. Some of us also got the opportunities to go to a primary school to observe the students’ traits to be recorded. I was one of them. It was fun but so tiring because we needed to match with those young’uns energy.

Principles of Food Preparation weekly practical

Human Genetics primary school visit

Nutritional and Health Assessment was a subject that taught us how to assess nutritional and health status of a person. So, there are many methods namely anthropometric measurement, biochemical assessment, clinical assessment and dietary assessment. It was easy to understand these methods but memorizing can be a bit of a problem here. You need to memorize Food Exchange System, BMI ranges, lipid profile, protein profile and so forth. The practical consisted of lab activities (biochemical assessment), a hospital visit, anthropometric measurement of each other and even a visit to a kindergarten (anthropometric measurement). One more thing, this was the only subject that OSCE was done for this semester. OSCE is basically a practical exam. My first OSCE was funny and tough at the same time (don’t ask me whyhaha). For Introduction to Psychology, we learnt about psychology. Personality, motivation, emotion, abnormal behaviours, stress, etc. We mainly did presentations by group with the given topics. It was interesting to learn about psychology but there were too much theories to be understood fully. Luckily, our lecturer was a laidback lady. It was always fun listening to her stories.

Hospital visit

            

In addition, I also took CEL for the second semester English requirement. Academic Writing. The lecturer was also a laidback person which was good because I always unintentionally come late to his class as it was located at another faculty, 10 minutes from mine and the subject before his class was the lab practical for Principles of Food Preparation. This lab always takes time. Every week, there was Take Home Task to be done online and sent before the due date. Besides, we also had writing assignments called writing portfolio.

           

            So, there you have it. My first year subjects. Overall, it was a wonderful year of learning. Many things that I had never dreamt of doing were done and I enjoyed every second of them. It is important to understand that all the opinions on the subjects are what I personally think and should not be deemed as facts or standard markers. Everyone has their own preferences and that is okay.