Recent nutrition graduate and gymnast Taylor Krippner was selected for a spot in the competitive Texas Women’s University dietetics internship.
This internship is a dual-enrollment program in which students earn their master’s degree and complete the minimum 1200 hour supervised practice requirement to become a registered dietitian.
The internship stage is an important part of the dietetics major.
“It’s required in order to become a registered dietitian,” Krippner said. “You have to get your bachelor’s degree in dietetics, then the next step is completing an internship. After that you have to take the RD exam, and once you pass that, you can be a registered dietitian."
For dietetic majors like Krippner, getting accepted into an internship program after graduation is not easy. The rate of getting matched to an internship is around 50 percent nationwide. However, Auburn University boasts a 100 percent placement rate, which, Krippner says, is extremely exciting for the nutrition students.
When her professor first brought up internships to their class, she didn’t think too much of it.
“I knew early on that I wasn’t going to be able to attend any open houses or anything because I was always training in season, and I couldn’t really miss any practices,” Krippner said.
However, Krippner’s dedication to gymnastics did not stop her from being proactive about her future. When she returned home for the summer at the end of her junior year, she began looking into her options.
“I scheduled a face-to-face appointment with the internship director at Texas Women’s because I had already done my research and knew that’s where I wanted to go. I met with her that summer so she could see a name to the face, whenever she saw my application. I really think doing the research early on, a year before I even needed to apply is really important, and communicating with the internship director on a consistent basis is probably key, in my opinion.”
The full-time internship will begin at the end of the summer for Krippner, and will last a year.
“I’ll be making rotations around Houston and basically gaining experience in medical nutrition therapy the most, as well as food service, community nutrition and school nutrition, perhaps sports nutrition…all those fields within dietetics," Krippner said.
Krippner still isn't sure which direction she'll go after the internship, whether it's clinical nutrition or sports nutrition, something she knows a lot about.
“The internship’s definitely going to help expand my point of view on all the different fields within dietetics, so depending on which route I go I’ll definitely look for a job in whatever realm I pick," Krippner said.
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