Allison Foley
Mentors Matter
Student: Bachelor of Science in Culinary Nutrition and Bachelor of Science in Dietetics
August 2021

Allison Foley started her academic career intending to go into nursing, but she had a change of heart after enjoying a Nutrition class. When she found out that Life University has a Dietetics program, she transferred to Life U. Foley is dual majoring in Culinary Nutrition and Dietetics, with the goal of becoming a Registered Dietitian and working in food service management.

“Success to me would be that I’m in a job that I like and that I will stay in for more than five years,” Foley said.

Foley is very involved on campus, including as a member of the Campus Activities Board, an officer for the Food and Nutrition Club and Vice President of Student Council.

The Food & Nutrition Club is a group of supportive and encouraging students who are interested in promoting nutrition education, exploring new trends in nutrition and working within the community to impact social change. “I oversee the garden directly. We just had an event recently where students could come and get a tutorial on gardening – it was a lot of fun.” Foley shared that they welcome all students, whether you are a nutrition student or enjoy food! Any Life U community member can join.

Her biggest advice for other students is to find a mentor.

“Getting a mentor early on, especially if you’re in the Dietetics program, is huge, just because there are so many different little steps,” she said. “You definitely need to know your specialty going in, before the internship. You really have to know like a year before because each internship is going to have a specialty – you might have food service management or renal care. You might have cardiac care or geriatrics. Everybody’s going to have a specialty, so you really want to have a mentor who’s in that field. And you want to go to the right open houses that are going to be directed toward those programs so that you’re in an internship that you really like, because a lot of those will get you jobs immediately after. It’s really high placement. So, you really want to get an internship and a mentorship that are directed toward where you want to go.”

 

 

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