Master of Applied Nutrition Webinar | Fall 2023 | Transcript Alexia: OK. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for the Master of Applied Nutrition webinar. We still have people who are coming in to join, so we'll give them a few minutes for the system to admit them and then we'll get started. Alright then. Things have seemed to have calmed down a little bit with all of the admittance. So once again, I want to say welcome and good evening. I hope that you've had a wonderful day. My name is Alexia Prescod. I'm the Program Coordinator for the Master of Applied Nutrition Program and I'm very excited to share with you some more information about the MAN program. To begin, I would like to start with a land acknowledgement. I humbly acknowledge that I live and work on the traditional, unceded land of the Anishinaabe, Hodinöhsö:ni' and Attawandaron peoples who have lived in harmony with the land for thousands of years. This acknowledgement is part of a pledge to work towards reconciliation, and reconnecting to the vision of the Dish With One Spoon Treaty. We all share one land. We must take care of the land so that it can sustain our children. We must respect and build peaceful relationships all people who live on it. And with that I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my colleagues who are joining me this evening. To begin with, we have Amy Skeoch who is the Practicum Coordinator for the Master of Applied Nutrition program and Amy will share a little bit more about her role when she speaks about one stream of the program. When we get to the clinical stream of the program, this is where Hannah Marcus, who is the Dietetic Education Lead at Grand River Hospital but also has other hats to wear, can share more information about her diverse and complex role within the MAN program. I've already introduced myself and my key role within the MAN program is sort of all those outside umbrella things, dealing with accreditation, paperwork and all that fun stuff. But we'll learn more about that as we go through our session this evening. As a first step, it would be really great to learn about who is with us this evening, who is joining us. So to that end, I'm going to launch a couple of polls so that we can share some information with each other. Hang on, I'm just switching screens right now. Here we go. So first of all, I'd appreciate if everyone who has joined us now can answer the following question. Are you planning to apply for a practicum program to start training in 2024? Once you've answered the question, please click submit and then we can check out the results. We are still getting a few responses back in. And I will close the poll in the next 10 or so seconds looking at how many people are actually in the meeting and how many have responded so far. I'm gonna close the poll now. and you can see the results there. So, most of the individuals who are joining us this evening do plan on applying in fall of 2024. Some are here ahead of time and a few are thinking about it. I just wanna check in with my colleagues to see if the poll results are clear on in terms of the pop up screen. Is that correct? OK. I just want to make sure it was nice and clear there. Alright, I have another poll question for the group today. This one is about your greatest areas of interest. So you can take each one of those little boxes and slide them in order. So put the most up, most important thing or the thing of most interest at the top and then create an order thereafter. Please note, if you're not sure, the very last one is still exploring. So just move that one to the top of the list and then we can sort of see where people are at and perhaps help us as the host of this session and tailor things to meet your needs a little bit better. Give everyone a few moments to think about that. And just so that you know, with these polls no names are recorded and the results are just aggregate. So feel free to click away and sort them the way that makes the most sense to you. Alright then, I'm just going to close the poll the next 10 seconds or so. Alright, I'm gonna close that poll and taking a look at the results, I'm just gonna ask Hannah, can you see the results of our poll up there on the screen, Hannah? Not yet. OK, hang on. Amy: I can see them, Alexia. Alexia: OK. I don't know. Oh, maybe just on a different pop-up screen for Hannah. So based on the results that we have here, most people are interested in Clinical Nutrition, followed by population health promotion, that's some food provision. There's a good chunk of those who are interested in entrepreneurship and industry. And we do have a group of individuals who are still exploring, which is awesome to see. For our final poll this evening, we want to know how you guys are feeling about applying to a practicum program. So if you could just pick one word to describe your current thoughts about applying for a practicum program, what would that be? Got a few coming up. I'm just gonna check with Amy. Are the words popping up automatically for you there, Amy? Excellent. So this is a nice way to kind of see where everyone is at. So definitely some anticipatory, not sure feelings. Which is completely understandable. And certainly worried. OK, fair. So I'm just gonna check the results, see how many people responded. So, far only about 11% of the group has responded. That's OK. It's kind of a free association question. It might take a little bit more to think of this. Amy: Alexia, I have 40 responded here, 41 now. Alexia: 41? OK, perfect. Thank you so much. It changed very rapidly. So we have some fast typists out there. Alright, I'm going to close the poll in the next 10 seconds and there we go. All right, so looking at this, the most common word is stressed. So hopefully by the end of the session this evening, those of you who are interested in the Master of Applied Nutrition program will be a little less stressed that you'll have a better sense of what we can offer you for your next step when it comes to training. And hopefully you can learn a little bit more about us and that will help you as well in terms of decreasing some of those feelings of nervousness, anxiety, overwhelm, etcetera. Alright, so let's get into the nitty gritty of things so to speak. Let's begin with a basic overview of the Master of Applied Nutrition program. The MAN program is a one-year combined Master’s practicum program and in that one year you will complete four applied graduate courses through practicum courses, at least one media communication project, a research portfolio and 146 entry level performance indicators better known as PI's. In one year, you will gain the skills in critical reflection, project management, networking, as well as professional development. In order to achieve so much in a compact amount of time, we have an interesting structure too. The MAN program – Mondays are course days and that is the day where you'll take all those graduate courses on campus at the University of Guelph. This is also really important day because this is the time of connection for the cohort. I have been consistently amazed about the tight network that's created among the MAN students as they navigate this adventure of training and personal development together. The coursework takes place concurrently in the fall and winter semester while you engage in your practical training experiences, and those take place anywhere from Tuesday to Friday, depending on the nature of your experience. In the summertime, your focus will then become just on the practicum experience and completing your research portfolio. But during your practicum experience, where you're connecting with different health professionals, other dietitians, with clients, with projects and various experiences, you're also receiving lots and lots of feedback. And that is the time where you'll be doing lots of critical reflection and thinking about your development in terms of next steps. The graduate coursework that you'll engage in starts in the fall semester with the Advances in Clinical Nutrition course, the Practicum one course followed by the fundamentals of Dietetic practice-based research. In the winter term, you'll have Community Nutrition, the 2nd practical course, as well as food Service Management and Healthcare. In the summer term, you'll be working with Amy and that is when you'll do your third practicum course. As mentioned previously, during the summer semester, that is the time where students really focus on finalizing their research portfolio. This portfolio is built between the first, second, as well as the third semester within the MAN program. The portfolio summarizes and documents the various experiences in applied research that students engage in. It is also a venue for student reflection on research experiences. This portfolio acts as a resource for students to bring forward into their careers and to demonstrate the depth and breadth of experiences they've had when it comes to applied research. The course Fundamentals of Dietetic Practice Research will provide the guidance for starting and fulfilling this portfolio. Now on to the exciting part, the actual practicum experiences within the MAN program, we have two streams of experiences. We have the classic stream as well as a clinical stream. So those of you who clicked Clinical Nutrition super important to you, you definitely wanna take notes when Hannah starts going through and sharing the amazing experiences in Clinical Nutrition that students can have at Grand River Hospital. But looking at the overall structure, everything begins with boot camp. And we do boot camp in the beginning of September and there are some great opportunity for students to connect, reawaken the ‘petites cellules grises’ in terms of getting ready to do EN&PN case studies, think about motivational interviewing and all students participate in that first week of boot camp. After that, students get orientation to their specific practical environments, and Hannah can share more information about how she organizes the orientation of the MAN-GRH students to Grand River Hospital. Following that, we have nutrition care for the Classic MAN students, it's anywhere from 10 to 13 weeks within one organization typically. And when it comes to nutrition care for the Grand River students, they get 20 intensive weeks of diverse experiences when it comes to management and food services or food provision. Again, MAN students have 10 to 13 weeks, while at GRH there is eight weeks of experiences when it comes to population health. It's 10 to 13 weeks before the Classic MAN students within one organization and six weeks with a community external partner. If you're part of the MAN-GRH team, there are different number of weeks available for focusing on the research portfolio as well as flex learning. So Classic MAN students have about 10 weeks, while the GRH students have about six weeks. When it comes to consolidation, the GRH students have three weeks of consolidation, which Hannah will explain how it's utilized as a key learning tool to prepare students for the next step in their dietetics career. And for the Classic MAN students, in each one of those three placements, students usually get about one week where they sort of take the reins, take charge, and can work solo depending on the nature of the placement that they are working in. Vacation time is about two weeks for either program. So that's kind of the basic layout in terms of the two streams. But looking at things overall in terms of an entire year, this graphic might be helpful. So on the MAN, the classic MAN side, you can sort of see how it starts with orientation and then the execution of one practicum during the fall semester with a mid placement followed by the flex weeks at the end. While with the MAN-GRH students you are experiencing different areas of clinical practice with flex weeks in between and you'll actually experience three different clinical areas within your first semester. So if you like diversity and you want to see really interesting areas of practice when it comes to Clinical Nutrition, the MAN GRH stream is a really good fit for you. You can see what happens in the winter and with the mentored students for example, then it goes into food service rotations. Now this is just saying that this would be for like one student because Hannah does the amazing shuffle shift to create a matrix for all four students who would join Hannah and her colleagues at Grand River Hospital. So this is sort of showing you a typical experience for one GRH student and then you see in the summertime again the MAN students start with orientation, their placement mid placement meeting followed by their flex weeks at the end. While for a MAN-GRH students you'll be finishing up your final clinical experience, you'll be getting your population health experience and then you would have consolidation in your final three weeks. So again as if that was one student side by side that can give you a picture overall of what a year in man might look like. I'm gonna pause now and turn things over to Hannah, and Hannah is going to share more details about the MAN-GRH experience. Hannah, when you're ready for the next slide, just give me either a thumbs up or just say next slide. Hannah: That's great. Thank you. Alexia. And I seem to have an echo. I'm not sure. It's better now. Everybody hear an echo, are we good? OK, great. So hello to all of the participants. I'm really happy to be able to speak to the MAN program, but the GRH stream. So how about we do next slide, OK. So um this, this current slide speaks to the sheer number of weeks that those who are admitted into the MAN-GRH stream will go through. So as Alexia already mentioned, in the classic MAN Stream, the students who are going in nutrition care will be there for 10 to 13 weeks, while at the Grand River Stream will have a you'll have 20 weeks and that is comprised of five rotations, each four weeks in length, which means you're getting five different areas that you will be exposed to at Grand River. We'll make sure that that's a combination of inpatient and outpatient areas. We do want to point out that that could take place over two campuses. So we have our acute care campus, which many call KW and then we have our more long term or complex continuing care campus at Freeport. So you could be at any of those campuses and we do occasionally send students to work at the satellite unit also. What we want to point out is though you have 20 weeks at the very end, you'll have three additional consolidation weeks. And so consolidation weeks are ways for the students to practice their clinical dietetics a little bit more independently from the dietitian. And so often that will be during summertime and some of the dietitians might be away on vacation. So the student will be taking on more of a caseload, much like what a normal dietitian would be doing, but they'll do it under the supervision of a buddy dietitian. So if you're interested in a clinically focused stream, this is really an ideal situation because at minimum you get 23 weeks of clinically focused practicum experience. Next slide. So we wanted to give you an idea of what are some of the areas that you could end up seeing while you were at Grand River Hospital [Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU), Complex Continuing Care (CCC), Diabetes, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Medicine, Mental Health, Oncology, Pediatrics, Rehab, Renal, Stroke, Surgery] and I'm just going to let you read those on your own, but really they comprise of both outpatient and inpatient areas. We hear a lot of people want pediatrics and that's certainly got that interest has gone up over the last number of years. We do have a one pediatric dietitian and we now have an outpatient eating disorders program that's focused on in Pediatrics. But for those of you who have more of an inpatient interest, there's all kinds of areas that you can experience from ICU to medicine to surgery. Next slide. We wanted to give you an example of what a combination of clinical rotations could look like this these sample student A, B and C are actually pulled from this year's students. So you can see student aid this year is began their year with an outpatient oncology rotation followed by inpatient oncology. They're moving on to medicine, followed by outpatient renal and then ICU. We have another one who's starting in Pediatrics. We're also doing outpatient oncology, some complex continuing care over at our Freeport campus. Then she's running back to the clinical teaching unit at our KW campus and finishing off the surgery while our students see is doing a little bit of complex care, stroke, Pediatrics, surgery, and outpatient renal. From this sampling you can see that more than one student might get in a chance to experience a rotation that they're very interested in. For example, in Pediatrics, we have two students that will have the opportunity to go to Pediatrics, two students that have a chance to go to surgery and two students have a chance to go to Renal. So if you're very interested in something, you would express that interest at the time of at the beginning of the year and we would make sure that we would accommodate that while also ensuring that you can meet all of your competencies during the year. Next slide. So you're not just coming to Grand River only to learn clinical. We do have a duty to train you in all the practice settings that are important to learn in our profession. And one of those is in the area of food provision. So if you're admitted into our stream, you would actually get that training at our KW campus and you would do that for eight weeks. And it's here that you'll learn all the aspects of food service operations and you'll be exposed to our centralized cold plate retherm system. And what we want to point is we have a fairly big organization. So we're feeding up to 600 patients a day or 1,900 meals and snacks per day are being prepared at Grand River. So it's a pretty big operation and a really great opportunity to learn about food provision. Next slide. And the other major area that you're going to get exposed to is your population health promotion. So this is the one area that we can't train you at Grand River. So we do send you to an external partner and in the past our partners have typically been the Waterloo Region Public Health, sometimes the University of Waterloo and then sometimes Community Health Centres. We have worked with other places as well, but those these are the most common ones. So if you are being trained in this area, you would be contributing to all types of all aspects of program development, program planning and resource development. And really the goal of this placement is learning to create communities where healthy choices are easier to make. Next slide. So maybe you're not sure. Should I apply to the MAN-GRH stream? I don't know. What you need to think about is you have to be really interested in lots of practicum placement time because you will get more than the Classic MAN student. You surely will want to be interested in Clinical Nutrition and if you don't think you like hospitals, it may not be an ideal, might not be an ideal fit for you. We want you to know that as a group of dietitians at Grand River were very welcoming and supportive. We've been training students for over 50 years and we have quite a culture around teaching and training you. Once you come here, you're going to be meeting all kinds of professionals, all kinds of students, and so it's a great opportunity to get to know the other healthcare professionals. We want to know that even though we're a large hospital, you won't get lost in the shuffle. People will know your name and at the end of this training program you will be prepared to work in a hospital setting. So if that sounds good to you, then we encourage you to apply to the MAN-GRH stream. That's it. Amy: All right. And Alexia, I'll just let you watch if there are anybody coming in. I've got a few people that are still joining the meeting. So welcome everyone. And my name is Amy Skeoch as Alexia told you at the beginning and I am in charge of finding placements for students in the Classic MAN program. And so we heard a lot of really great things about our more clinically focused stream. And so now I want to share a little bit about our Classic MAN program with you for those of you who perhaps want a little bit more of a diverse exploration of dietetics or perhaps some of you are not sure exactly what area of dietetics you're looking to get into. Alright. Next slide please, Alexia. So when we think of the Classic MAN, this is where students are going to have the opportunity to do three different placements throughout the year. And as Alexia showed you earlier, each of those placements is either 10 or 13 weeks. And that is dependent on whether or not you're doing the placement three days or four days a week. So that's what kind of dictates how long you would be in placement. And we have a lot of different community partners that we have affiliations with across Ontario, more mainly the GTA and from year to year. What we do is we put out a survey to them every March and we get feedback from them to say who would like to have a student this year. And then from there we make up different pathways for students to kind of choose from when it comes to there are different practical choices. And the nice thing about the Classic MAN is that this really does give students an opportunity to have almost three mini jobs throughout the year. And so it's a nice sizable chunk of time and allows you to really explore the different areas within Dietetics. And also we have a lot of different types of placements. So also a lot of the different and new types of emerging areas of practice or something that we also really try to include. So for example, we have students that are with Dietitian Success Centre, which many of you might be familiar with more for a virtual placement. We've had students with Body Brave doing different types of eating disorders. So we have a lot of different opportunities that come up home care as well. Not that that's necessarily emerging, but again kind of more of a specialty area of practice. So we really do try to keep things kind of interesting and look to see what is available for students and that changes from year to year. Alright, Alexia, next slide please. So each of our placements or each of the students placements would be 40 days in one organization whether or not again that's spread over three days a week or whether or not that's four days a week and usually from like an 8:30 to 4:30 type of eight hour work day. And as I mentioned before, the nice thing about having a longer placement rather than say just six to eight weeks, which sometimes, you know, some placements might be. This really does allow students to be able to take projects from kind of beginning to end or at least to have a very good experience in starting and kind of getting into a project. Oftentimes we find a lot of students, you know, it takes about three weeks for students to even get familiar with the organization that they're with. So having a longer experience really does allow you to feel like I have a vested interest in the projects, get to know a lot of the people at the organization and just feel very familiar and comfortable with the different practical experiences that you might have. And then what we also would like to do is we have them in three different chunks throughout the year, basically because we're covering off those main areas of practice, one being nutrition care, secondly food provision and 3rd population health promotion. And at the same time, in doing all of those three different placements, you would also be covering off all of those different domains such as professionalism, communication, etcetera that are also part of those competencies that are necessary in order to prepare you to write that CDRE exam at the end of internship. All right. Next slide please. So this just gives us a typical MAN pathway, three different pathways that students might have this year. And as you can see, we have the three different domains that I talked about, nutrition care, population, health promotion and food provision. And you can see that student A, for example, in fall, in their first practicum, they would be doing a nutrition care placement at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Then in the wintertime for their second placement they would be with Dietitian Success Centre for their Population health promotion placement. And then in the spring/summer which is usually kind of May to end of June, they would be with Maple Villa which is a long term care for more of that food provision placement. And so as you can see students would be doing different types of placements at different times. So not everybody does their nutrition care at the same time, not everybody does their health promotion at the same time. It totally depends on when our community partners are willing to take students and then from there we create these various pathways for students and there is some um preference given to students. What we do is once students have been selected for the cohort, we in June every year ask them to rate their top three pathways that are provided to them once we know where we are going the next following year. And then from there most students get at least their third one out of their third choice. I think our percentage is somewhere up in the 92% get their first or second choice every year. So we have really usually quite good luck as long as not everybody chooses the exact same pathways. All right. Next slide please. So Classic MAN is for you if you want unique placement experiences, you want to experience different working environments, as I mentioned, because the three different placements are in those different domain areas. It just allows you to experience three very different working environments, which I think is fantastic. It's like I said, it's almost like having three miniature jobs in a year. Um, you want to, you know, you want to increase your confidence and it's definitely adventure. Sometimes we have last minute cancellations in placements. And so you know you really do need to be kind of flexible in the Classic MAN program just because of the how things are in dietetics and in the Dietetic environment these days. Things do change of course depending on funding and you know mat leaves and things like that. But certainly you want to see various career opportunities that might exist beyond clinical which you know if you already have a fairly good sense of that perhaps you want to see what other types of things might interest you in the area of dietetics And then you can kind of think about where area you would like to then focus on perhaps at the end of your year? Alright. Thank you. Alexia: Thanks so much. Amy and I will just share this next slide because I think it's really emblematic about, you know, what are we looking for in a MAN student. Whether you decide to become a Classic MAN student or a MAN GRH student, this is a descriptor of a MAN student is that was generated by a couple of cohorts of MAN students. So you can have a sense of those who have lived this experience, what they think it takes to be successful within the experience of being a MAN student. Now to become a MAN student, of course you have to apply. So I'm going to walk you through the basic process related to admission information. We have a new website up and available for you to take a look at so you can see all the steps [uoguel.ph/man]. So we'll do a basic overview here. So, the admission requirements. We need to have applicants who have recently completed a PDEP-accredited undergraduate degree within the last three years, or who have a Level 1 KCAT exam result. We're looking for a minimum cumulative average of 75% in the last two years of academic work, and we also specifically look for a minimum average of 75% in one stats course and a 75% in one research methods course. We are also looking for three one semester 400 level courses in human nutrition. Although some accredited programs don't require students to take this many 400-level or top-level courses in applied nutrition, we do look for because we are a graduate program and we want to see that students can perform well at that highest level of undergraduate education. As part of your application to the MAN program, you'll be asked to calculate your average for the last two years. So once we see that information on the cover page, we will go through the steps that you see here. We will review to see what are the last two years of full-time equivalent study or four semesters of study. We will look for 20 one-semester classes. We will not split a semester. So if we get to class #20 and you have two more classes in that same semester, we will include those two additional courses and your admission of average would be based on 22 courses. We will not take fewer than 16 courses and so that means how we're counting the classes and how credits are done. At the University of Guelph, we speak in terms of 0.5 credits for a three-month/one semester course and 1.0 for a course that would take six months or both the fall and winter academic semester. So we have a little bit of semantics there and once again you're going to be asked to self-determine your average on that cover page. You'll also be asked to identify where is your research methods course, where is your stats course that meets the requirement of the minimum 75%. You will also be asked to list out your three 400-level courses. So that cover sheet is really important for you to fill out and so that you share information with us so that we can quickly assess your transcripts. This application process for the MAN program is actually done in two steps. You have to first apply online using the OUAC system and then you need to upload supplemental materials. When it comes to the OUAC system, you need to apply before December 11th, 2023. The reason for this early deadline is that once you apply to OUAC and make your payment, OUAC notify the University of Guelph. There's a group of people at the University of Guelph, will then send you an access link so that you could upload your supplemental materials. The University of Guelph typically closes for a week and a half to two weeks at the end of December. So we need to make sure that we've got all those links for people who have applied to the MAN program, they now have access to the digital system so they can upload their supplemental materials, which has to be done by January the 5th. So these deadlines are firm and an important for you to keep an eye them. So going back to that OUAC application form, it asks for basic information, name where you're located, where did you go to school, that sort of thing. It will also ask you for who will be your academic reference. Now the challenge with the OUAC system is that it's default and set up for two academic references need to be inputted for you to move forward with your application. We only require one academic reference for the MAN program, so please enter that information carefully because the reference will be sent via e-mail, so make sure you have the e-mail correct for your academic reference. Now if you choose not to have a second academic reference, please enter the information for an e-mail address that you as the applicant have access to. Once you receive the reference from the OUAC system, please just fill it out as N/A and send it back in so OUAC thinks that as an academic reference has been submitted on your behalf. I realize it's not the most elegant solution, but it's the one that we have to work with right now. Since the OUAC system has defaulted to minimum two academic references and we want to give applicants choice about how many academic references they wish to submit, the minimum is one for us, but OUAC is going to ask you to input two. Make sure it's an e-mail that you have access to. Of course, the payment, it will ask for your payment, and once that's done, it's submitted. As I mentioned before, information will go back to the central area at the University of Guelph, and then you'll be sent a link so that you can access our internal systems where you can upload supplemental documentation. And this will be the cover page that I mentioned before where you'll be filling out lots of information to tell us where to look on your transcript. For specific pieces of information, we will need unofficial transcripts. That's absolutely fine. And once that is uploaded, we will utilize that to do some of our calculation as well as reviewing information. You will also have to upload at least one professional reference form. So you need to find someone who knows you in either a work or volunteer setting. So someone who knows you outside the academic setting who will then provide insight about how do you operate outside of that academic setting. That is done on a very specific form. Please note that you need to put your references on the correct form. If a professional reference is put on the academic form it counts for zero in our assessment process. If an academic reference is put on the professional form, it counts as zero for a process. So academic references must be on the academic form, which is accessed through OUAC The professional reference must be done on the professional form, which is access from our website. So from the MAN application website and is sent in to our graduate or graduate and administrative support person. You need to include a CV as part of your supplemental documents as well as some essay questions. The list of essay questions, again, is on the man application website. If you have KCAT results, you're asked to upload those as well as part of your supplemental documentation. Some additional notes related to admissions. I mentioned the three references required. At least one academic with the notation of the OUAC system being a little goofy and defaulted to two. You need one professional and then one of your choosing. So you can choose a second academic reference, or you can choose a second professional reference. That is up to you. If you have any course requirements to finish your degree that are in progress. Those courses need to be done by April 30th of the year that you apply, so April 30th of 2024. You have to have everything done and ready to be entered into the main program. If you are selected, all applicants are evaluated on a competitive basis. The admission requirements are the minimum requirements. Accepted applicants may have more diverse or in-depth experiences or significantly higher academic achievement. So this is what we look through and work through when we're looking at all the pieces of paper that you submit to us. Once you have submitted all these pieces of paper to us, what happens next? Well, we do our review and we come up with our list of individuals that we would like to interview. The invitation for interview is sent out in early February, and we'll conduct online interviews the week that we have a Family Day. So usually the Tuesday through Thursday is when we do our interviews. Then we start reviewing all of the information that comes from the interview and then the departmental. Oops, sorry, I have some reminders going off in my house right now. My apologies. So then once we have generated a departmental recommendation list, we will then contact all of the applicants via e-mail saying “Hi. Our department wants to welcome you into the program this coming fall” and once applicants say “Yes I'm interested in coming in”, we send a notice off to graduate program services and they send out the official admission offer. So we have a multi-step process at the University of Guelph. Now we have our list of offers. We also create a wait list and those on the wait list will get contacted as their name moves up on the list. By June, we usually have all of our formal offers of admission out by the Office of Graduate Study and then our wait list is ended. If you would like more information, feel free to scan the QR code. That will lead you to our new MAN information pages [uoguel.ph/man] and then we have a new website and a new e-mail set up called man.grad@uoguelph.ca for any additional questions. I just want to draw your attention to the picture here. It's taken outside of the MINS building. This was taken in the summer of '22 and this is the class of MAN students who graduated in '23. Many of them walked across the stage not that long ago at the University of Guelph to receive their parchment and as you can see quite a diverse group and pretty much most of that group has a job, is working. They're prepping to take the CDRE and with that I would like to end the formal part of our presentation this evening and will take a look at what questions have shown up in the chat. Amy: Looks like we have some application questions, mainly. “Are summer courses included in the average calculation?” Alexia: Well, that would depend on when you took that summer course. So if that summer course was taken between 3rd and 4th year, yes it would be included. If you took that summer course between 1st and 2nd year it would probably–will not get included. So hopefully that helps out with that piece. Amy: We have “can it be any year level for the research and stats courses?” Alexia: So long as it's the stats and research methods required that is part of the PDEP-accredited program, so that number doesn't matter so long. It's just the stats and methods that are required for the PDEP-accredited program. Amy: And it looks like Lindsay has a question. She says “to clarify, the courses that you have at U of G that are 1.0 credits would count as two courses?” Alexia: That's right, it gets counted twice. So, your grade for that course gets counted twice. Amy: OK, Sarah says, “if you send the reference form to yourself, how does your actual reference submit their reference letter?” Alexia: OK, Sarah, we just to clarify there, remember the OUAC form is defaulted for two academic references. You input the information for your actual academic reference, and then you input information so that a form gets sent to you, and then you fill out that form from going blah blah blah blah blah blah and send it back to the OUAC system. So it's like, OK, it's done, but your real academic reference will also get the form to fill out on your behalf. Amy: All right, we have “what are the admission requirements if I did not study for my undergrad in Canada?” Alexia: If you did not study for your undergrad in Canada, if you study in the US, for example, you would need something called a verification letter, which in Canada, the parallel is the confirmation of accredited degree confirmation. So if you have that letter, the verification letter, you include that as part of your application, you include in your supplemental documents and that's absolutely fine. If you are trained outside the outside of Canada, the US, then we'll be looking for your KCAT result. Amy: Alright. The next question I can answer, it says “do you have to live in Guelph when taking the program? Are there placement options in Toronto?” And yes, so obviously the GRH stream is in Kitchener, so that would be obviously preferential for you to be living in and around the Kitchener area. But certainly for the Classic MAN there are each of the different pathway options are usually geographically somewhat similar. So for example, we would try to do three placements in and around the GTA for example, more maybe Mississauga, Toronto, we have potentially a pathway area, couple pathways that might be down around the Niagara region for example. And again remembering that you have an opportunity to pick your top three that you would like to try and get if you are welcomed into the program. And so know that you don't have to definitely live in Guelph, although there are definitely some pathways that would be in Guelph for all three different placements. We do have a variation of locations for various different pathways. So yes, definitely there's options in Toronto. And then “can I apply to both the GRH stream and the Classic MAN stream?” Alexia: The answer is yes. So, when you are looking at the cover sheet, if you're interested in the GRH stream, put it there on the cover sheet. It even has a such thing. Who do I want to look at application? Write in Hannah Marcus. So then that way we know it's going to GRH. And so if you apply to GRH and because there are four spots for students in the GRH program when you apply to GRH and if you're not chosen for GRH spot and you could then be considered for a classic MAN spot. So, in a way you're applying for both the streams when you apply to GRH. So just make sure we know to like filter your application to look at for GRH and Hannah and Hannah's colleagues to look at your application that way. Amy: “What is involved in the development of the research portfolio?” Alexia: The research portfolio is a really neat way for students to experience how dietitians use evidence and research in practice today. So, a great example of that, I'm just thinking back to us chatting with Dr. Laura Forbes about what one student was doing. They are working with a dietitian in their nutrition care experiences. So they're Classic MAN student. And this dietitian has asked the student to do a case study on someone who has who came into the hospital with a very rare condition. And so they're gonna ask to do a clinical case study for the dietitians and others who are working there. And to augment that experience and to have that then included as part of the research portfolio showing that they have skills when it comes to critical review of the literature. The student will be using the skills that Laura talked to. Dr. Forbes has taught them in class to do a systematic lit review and that lit review will help them do the clinical case study for their practicum. But then they show how they did that systematic review as one element within their research portfolio. So within that portfolio you need to demonstrate certain skills. So as I mentioned lit review. You have to demonstrate understanding your research ethics. You have to demonstrate an understanding of how you get funding to do research or to do a specific project, how to do qualitative data gathering and assessment, statistical data analysis, quality improvement as well as… I know I'm forgetting one… what is the seventh one? My goodness, my brain is going blank. Ah, survey development. There we go. So how to develop a survey. So those are the core applied research skills we want our graduates to walk away with. And you'll experience them both from coursework as well as practical. And we want you to document both of those and create an overall portfolio that says, well, I know how to do a survey because I did it here and this is what I learned from doing this survey and I know how to make it better. So that's kind of a brief outline of how the portfolio is developed. Amy: Alright. “How many applicants are accepted into the program?” Alexia: We aim for a cohort size of 23 to 24 students. I want 24 for next year. How about you, Amy? How about you? Amy: Yeah, 24. It does vary depending just for students to know. It does vary depending on how many apply, how many you know, how students do in the interview process, where they end up in our, in our, yeah, the rating, I suppose ranking. But it also does depend on our community partners and how many different pathways can be made-up. Alexia: Yes. So that's–there's a few variables to that. Very, very, yes, 24, let's go for 2024. So four go to Hannah and 20 to Amy, and then I'll see you all in class. How about that? Amy: Yeah, perfect. And let's see… “could you please review the way to calculate credits for the last two years?” Alexia: So the way to calculate your credit for last two years… I will direct you to our graduate studies website. When you go to the graduate studies website [uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies], it says how to apply and it'll actually lay out how they do the calculation there. So I would encourage you to go to that website so you can see how that process is done because I could talk it out, but I think it's better if you take a look at it and then use your own transcript to follow along with that process. Amy: All right. We have a question about again the Grand River and regular stream. So I'm just going to reiterate again that during the application process that's where we need you to either in your essay or something you what we want to find out then which area you are applying for? Are you applying for GRH or are you applying for Classic MAN. So no, you do not need to pay for two times the application fee. You just apply once. You apply once. Alexia: And please put Grand River Hospital/Hannah Marcus on the cover sheet. Amy: Yes, exactly. “What if you took less than 20 courses within the last two years?” Alexia: That's not a problem because the assessment can be done on 19 courses, 18 courses, 17 courses, and 16 is the bare minimum that will be considered. So if you took less than 20, that's fine, but it has to be 16 or more, right? Amy: All placements in Guelph/KW, we did talk about that. No, they are not. They are all over. Um. Also we have Sarah asking… sorry, Sarah meant, “I meant what does your third reference fill out if you send the form to yourself?” So Sarah, if you have a second reference, then you would be sending them that. Remember, it's just that we only need a minimum of one reference, right? One academic reference, one professional reference, and one reference of your choice as the applicant. So you can get a second professional reference, or you can get a second academic reference. So if you choose not to, and you just go to the bare minimum of one of each of those, Sarah, that's when you would, for that third one, need to send that e-mail to yourself so that you can fill it out. Alexia: That is not correct. That's for the academic reference specifically though. Amy: Yes. OK, sorry. So she's saying, “what does your third reference fill out if you send the form to yourself?” Alexia: Ohhh so I think uh, Sarah was asking how do we get to three references? So you need one academic and then you have to, within the OUAC form, do a fake academic one to yourself and then you would have to get two professional references. So there's different ways of doing it. I think Sarah is just looking for what are my different combinations. So you could do you could get two, you get your minimum one academic reference. You can get your second optional academic reference and then a professional reference. The next variable that you could do is your actual academic reference, the fake academic reference to yourself. And they get one professional reference and then a second professional reference. So that's how you would do it. So it's like playing gin rummy. How do you get your suit together? That makes the best sense for you? All right? Amy: “What matters for the main application more, um, your GPA or experiences?” I'm going to say that we take all into consideration. Things are all weighted kind of equally. So we don't necessarily weigh one over the other per se. Alexia: We definitely do not. We had students who've made it through the entire MAN application process who have an average of 75% but really amazing experiences and really amazing references. We've looked at applications of students who have a GPA of 90%, but their experiences were basic and the references weren't the best. So it really is the entire combination that we take a look at to see who might be a good fit. And I know, Hannah, when you're looking at the applications as well as the interview for students, you're looking for specific things that work well for GRH. After all, you guys been training dieticians for over 50 years. Hannah: Sorry, were you asking me a question or were you just commenting? Alexia: Well, I was kind of commenting and hoping you would slide in some like, you know, some of the things you guys like to see it with your 15 screening dietitians. What are some cool things you like to see? Hannah: Sorry, I apologize. Actually my connection is breaking up quite a bit. So I'm missing all the prompts. So if there's something. So I apologize if you'd like me to answer a question I need here at one more time. Alexia: OK, no worries. So the question was about are we looking mostly at the GPA or experiences when it comes to choosing applicants. So Amy and I kind of commented for Classic MAN, how about for yourself and your colleagues when you're considering someone for the MAN-GRH stream? Hannah: Yeah, I think we're all looking at the same thing. And of course the interview does help a lot, helps us assess if you will be a good fit and that goes a long way since you're spending so much time with us. It's important. Amy: Absolutely, absolutely alright we have “if you get accepted into MAN and unexpected life circumstances occur, are you able to keep your spot but delay your start time to the following year?” So defer I guess is the question here. Alexia: We very rarely defer just because there's such demand for training spots. It would have to we–we've done it in the past on a case-by-case basis. One of them was COVID cause that threw everybody for a loop. It would depend what's going on with like. I mean it's rare, it's not a standard process. And so in general, no, we don't like to defer, but we have done in the past and it's case-by-case and it's not guaranteed. So I hope that helps you out. Amy: OK, “if I took two courses at a time for the last two semesters, are they not counted in my average?” Alexia: Everything is counted in your average. Again, we will consider no less than 16 courses, looking for 20, so that's what we're looking for. Amy: OK? And Caitlin is asking “how many spots are available for out of province students?” Alexia: Oh, there is no specific designated spots for out of province students. It's like put in your application, get into the pool. And we've had, oh my gosh, we've had students from BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, PEI, from Quebec. Where else have we had people come from? the United States? Um, yeah, basically we consider everyone who puts in the application who meets the requirements. So throw your hat in the ring, so to speak. Amy: Exactly. Alright, Katherine has a question. “If we apply to GRH and Classic, should we check off...” Oh no, sorry, Amber has a question. “If you don't have access to a car, you're not able to apply to any program?” Alexia: You can apply to the program, but you need to be able to gain access to a car so that you can do your training opportunities. Now that could be anything from like Uber becomes your new best friend, you can join a community car share group. Maybe you have a sibling, aunt, parent, grandmother, or whoever who will get you there. It's just because some of these placements are not on major transit routes, so students need access to a car to be able to complete their experiences. And sometimes if there is transit, it doesn't get you there early enough. Some dietitians start their work at 7:00 AM and stuff isn't running at that time. So you need to be able to get yourself to your experiences. So that's why we say access to a car. We had a student who rented a car for when they needed it. So there's lots of different options that way. But recognize that you need to be independent in terms of your transportation to get from point A to point B at different times that are not the typical rush hour times. Amy: And I'm just going to skip over one for a second just because it's relating a little bit to this. We have Brooke who said “can you explain the schedule of the MAN program again, what days in person on campus, what days in placement for how many months?” And so that actually kind of links a little bit to that car comment. So Mondays, everybody is in class at the University of Guelph. Then from Tuesday to Friday you are in placement whether or not that is at GRH, if you're doing the clinical stream or whether or not you are in your Classic MAN placements, you are either. If you're Classic MAN you're doing three, potentially three or four days of that Tuesday to Friday. And as far as how many months we start the first, usually it's the first week of September when the semester begins and we go until usually about mid-July, end of July kind of thing. That's typical as long as people need to go in order to get their three, their amount of time and days in according to what the is required of them. Alright, so we go back to the other one. “If we apply to GRH and Classic stream, should we check off both on our cover letter or do we only need to check off GRH?” Alexia: You just need to write GRH in terms of because there's a spot that says who do you want to review your application? Hannah Marcus/GRH is what you need to put there, alright? Amy: “I want to work in prenatal and pediatric nutrition care. Would I be able to work in those areas if I don't get clinical placements in the GRH Stream? Would I be able to work with that specific population if I did the Classic MAN Stream?” So unfortunately, we can't guarantee it. Again, going back to it depends on what community partners agree to take students. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we don't. So we can't guarantee that for the MAN Stream unfortunately. Yeah, uh, we have Naya ask “in the past, have graduates gone on to work in sports nutrition? Have any sports nutrition placements been available?” And yes, we have had sports nutrition placements. Sports nutrition is definitely considered more of a specialty area. So it's not as prevalent for your typical nutrition care type of placement. And certainly it wouldn't be only nutrition or sports nutrition that you would take for your 10 to 13 weeks in most cases. Sometimes it would, you know, maybe you would be able to do six weeks with sports nutrition and then have to do something else nutrition care related in order to get some of those other competencies done. Um, because it is considered more of a specialty as opposed to an entry level type of Dietetic position. But it has happened, yes. Alexia: And I can think of at least four MAN graduates who are currently working in sports nutrition right now. Amy: Yeah, exactly. “What is the format for the essay questions and CVs? Do you have requirements for margins, fonts, etcetera?” Alexia: We don't have requirements for margins, fonts, etcetera. We do want it to… we want to see how you make good decisions about making things legible. And it's easy enough for someone to read keeping in mind that we do read you know, more than what was it was 80 applications last year. So keep that in mind as people do the essay in in different ways. So we want to see what do you do. Actually one of the essay questions, the last one is an optional one and I love this one. It says if your name was um… oh my brain just went blank. If you made your name an abbreviation, I can't remember. Oh my gosh, I can't remember the question. This is so bad. So if your name was so, then you have to take each letter of your name and describe yourself. So I apologize, my brain is just not working right now. I can't think of the English literary word for that. I think that's what it is. I think it is. Yeah. Acronym. Acronym. Thank you, Catherine. There we go. I cannot believe I forgot if your name was an acronym. How would you describe yourself? So there's some fun things that way as well. So you we want to see how you want to present your information in terms of the essay. Amy: Alright, “do our references need to have their letters into OUAC by the December 5th deadline?” Alexia: So the OUAC deadline is for you to make the application by December the 11th. We need your references to be in by January 5th and the OUAC system will send them gentle but annoying reminders: “you need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do this.” You don't have to worry about that, alright? Amy: “Is it possible for graduates of the MAN program to work as part of research teams? Has this been done in the past?” Alexia: Absolutely. We've had a few MAN graduates who then leap into doing further research with an MSc and there's a few that have gone on to do PhDs and other types of programs. Oh thank you Catherine saying acronym, thank you so much. Well, we couldn't say it and there's no page limit to the CV. The CV doesn't say have a page limit, but we want to see you present good information that's relevant to the MAN program. So if you just put like everything in like a kitchen sink, not really that interested. But if you present to us who you are in that CV and how that lines up and how you would be good applicant to the MAN program, that would be excellent. Amy: And we have OK, “just as a follow up with the sports nutrition placement, be part of the practicum pathways or could they be included after discussing interests?” Um, it depends really on the situation. Like I said, usually pathways are kind of already created by that time. Sometimes students decide that they want to have a specialty area that hasn't been part of their pathway if they're able. They know a dietitian for example, that they could do a few weeks with or something like that and tack that onto their experience, then that is something that we have looked at in the past. But again, we just can't, we can't guarantee anything at this point in time. So that's why we hesitate to say yes. For sure it would happen because we don't know what community partners are going to agree. And then, yes, "to clarify, the cohort will be in Guelph every Monday for the entire 12 months?" Alexia: No, not the entire 12 months. So it'll be every Monday in the fall semester, every Monday in the winter semester, and most likely two Mondays in the spring semester. Amy: Yeah, “if you do not meet requirements, will your application be looked at?” Alexia: No, your application will not be looked at if you don't meet minimum requirements. Amy: “If accepted into the program, when are potential pathways made available to the students?” So, they are made available towards… usually it's the end of May that we have kind of a kickoff meeting and that's when I present the various pathways that are available. Alexia: And at that meeting Hannah attends as well to share some basic getting ready to come to GRH information for the MAN-GRH students and has a bit of a chat about what you're working with in terms of logistics, with the puzzle pieces in terms of what's available. And then Hannah, you, you start making your magic work in terms of the different rotation schedules. Amy: Let's just see. Oh, Catherine has a question here “to clarify, if your application to GRH is denied, will you be automatically considered for Classic MAN?” Alexia: Yes. So when we do the interview process, we're basically looking for really good students. So what we start with, let's say you guys all apply. We look at all the applications altogether. We look for minimums and everyone who meets the minimum, we kind of move forward from there. We assess and rank applications. It is ranked by at least two members of the selection committee and we identify from there. When we go into interviews who has asked for the GRH stream, we flag those individuals for Hannah or the reviews, their applications and has that information. Hannah participates in the interview process. So then Hannah and Hannah’s colleagues doing of those interested in GRH Stream and they identify who they want to invite in. Who would they want and who is not a good fit for the GRH stream? Those who have been deemed not a good fit for the GRH stream but are still good fits for the training of the MAN program, you're automatically considered for the Classic MAN program. So again, if you have any interest at all in training at GRH or trying to gain more experience in Clinical Nutrition, just put who do you want to see your application? Hannah Marcus/GRH as a starting point. And after that we take care of everything on the back end. Oh, can't hear you, Amy. Amy: Sorry, “wondering if a recording of this webinar will be sent out later?” And yes, we are recording the current webinar and we will send out to participants and anyone that was unable to join us tonight. And in the past, “have most students that apply to the GRH stream been accepted?” Alexia: Oh, I have to think about the math on that. Amy: Um, there's only four spots usually. So if we get 80 people and usually there's a good portion of those, there's only four, four spots for the clinical stream. So I want to say no. No, unfortunately, no. Um, not everybody that applies to GRH gets those four spots because there's usually more than four people that certainly apply. Yep. Amber wonders, “do you just look at the average for the past 20 courses or do you look at any specific class grades beyond stats and research methods? Example, Clinical Nutrition?” Alexia: We look at the average for the past 20 courses and only look for the specific grades for stats and methods. OK. So just taking a look to see. Let me know if any more questions come up because I would like to put out one last poll. Amy: “Does the average for grades include the current semester?” Alexia: Current semester as in fall semester? Is what I have because some programs they don't. They're not able to provide unofficial transcripts with the fall grades on it, so it just depends. So I'm not quite sure. Amy: Great. And Tina is wondering “for the three 400-level human nutrition courses, do they all have to be in nutrition care, disease management or just any 400-level nutrition course?” Alexia: They need to be something related to human nutrition. So, it could be an advanced Clinical Nutrition, it could be a food security, it could be cultural aspects of food, it could be anything related to the upper level of nutrition, it could be food provision, like it just has to be related to something to human nutrition. Amy: OK. “I am taking a course at another university online and will be transferring the credit to U of G. I will be finished before April 30th for that course. But I was told that transferring the credit may delay graduation by a semester. Would this prevent me from applying to the MAN program this year?” Alexia: Well, if you can't meet the requirements to graduate, it might. Right, say that it's a timing thing, like you have to be graduated to then be allowed to start the MAN program. So that's a timing piece. You'll have to figure out what the university where you're taking the course and the University of Guelph. All right, I'm going to launch, one more poll while we have this lull in questions, and I would very much like to know how satisfied you were with the speakers and the info session overall. If you could just let us know, we'd greatly appreciate that. And if you do have any more lingering questions, feel free to put them in the chat. And we'll definitely get to those before we close things off this evening. OK, I'm just looking at... let me look at the response details. Oh my screen decided to freeze. Oh, no. Alright, I'm going to close that poll now and there are results. So it looks like we were able to address questions from the group overall. So yay to us team, you're able to do that. So hopefully as you listen to the information that we shared, as we chatted about experiences we've had with past students, current students, that you got a sense of how we like to do things within the MAN program, we are very focused on the success of the students who come and join us. We are very focused on satisfying the standards associated with the accredited nature of our program. We want to make sure that students have experiences that set them up to be very successful in their future career within dietetics. So hopefully with that, you have been reaffirmed in your decision to apply to the MAN program. Or perhaps you have now been convinced to take a look at the MAN program as part of your process of choosing what will be your next step when it comes to entering into a career in dietetics. So I want to say thank you so much for your time this evening and we hope to see your applications in January. All the best, everyone, and have a great night. Bye everybody. [End of transcript]