School of Urban Public Health
Nutrition and Food Science
Program Coordinator:
Ming-Chin Yeh, PhD
Associate Professor
Silberman Building
2180 Third Avenue, Room 609
(212) 396-7776
myeh@hunter.cuny.edu
Recruitment and Admissions Coordinator:
Amina Alam, BA
Room 301
212-396-7778
aala@hunter.cuny.edu
The Nutrition and Food Science (NFS) major at Hunter College is a diverse science-based program where students learn about food and its effect on our health. It offers a comprehensive study of the fundamental principles of food preparation and safety, nutrition, food service management, and community nutrition education. This is accomplished through the application of a variety of sciences. Students who like physical and biological sciences, are interested in good health, enjoy working with people, and are concerned about the nutritional well-being of people and communities will find interesting and challenging career opportunities within health care fields or in the food industry. The NFS major at Hunter develops these interests and prepares students for challenging opportunities after graduation.
This major is designed for students who plan to enter the workforce directly out of college. The BS in NFS may be a terminal degree, or NFS graduates may elect to continue on for additional education. Students in the NFS major will take courses in nutrition, food science, food service management, research methods, community nutrition education, and epidemiology.
Along with providing students with a good preparation in nutrition, this major is also a good undergraduate preparation for those who might want to go into allied health fields, social work, or other human service professions. The elective courses also allows these undergraduate students who may wish to pursue medicine, nursing, physical therapy or other health careers to take additional science and other pre-requisite coursework for those programs.
Career Opportunities: The BS in NFS degree provides graduates with a wide variety of career opportunities. Foods and nutrition majors frequently work with athletes, weight control and fitness programs, or other special groups like WIC (Women, Infants & Children in community settings. Industries like hotels, airlines, universities, food service chains, and industrial cafeterias employ food service managers. Graduates can become food science technical specialists and conduct research, development and quality control of food products for food companies. It is also possible to use foods and nutrition knowledge for jobs in advertising, marketing and in the mass media. Students can become consultants to television programs, or write articles on food for newspapers. Students may take steps after graduation to enter a graduate didactic program in dietetics to become registered dietitians.
Note: This major is not a didactic program in dietetics (DPD) and does NOT prepare the student to become a registered dietitian.
Admission Requirements
Students planning to apply for admission to the School of Health Sciences Nutrition and Food Science track should attend a group orientation session for prospective students held several times throughout the year. Please see http://sph.cuny.edu/news-events/ for updates.
Students enter the program in the fall semester and can attend on a full-time or part-time basis during the day. The Appendix I: Hunter Core Requirement should be met before entrance into the NFS major. The requirements for admission into the NFS major are completion of 60 credits, including the following courses: two semesters of anatomy and physiology with lab BIOL 12000 and BIOL 12200 ; one semester of general chemistry with lab CHEM 10000 (STEM) and CHEM 10100 ; one semester of organic chemistry with lab CHEM 12000 (STEM) and CHEM 12100 (STEM) ; one semester of microbiology with lab BIOL 23000 ; one semester of statistics STAT 11300 or STAT 21300 (STEM) ; one semester of introductory food science NFS 13100 ; one semester of introductory nutrition NFS 14100 . A grade of C or better must be earned in all science prerequisites, and a grade of B or better in the two nutrition and food science courses.
The prerequisite courses must be completed by the end of the summer session preceding entrance into the NFS major. An overall GPA (combined grade point average from all postsecondary institutions attended) of 2.8 is required for consideration. Because of the competitive nature of the applicant pool and the small size of the incoming class, the admission process may favor applicants with an overall GPA greater than 2.8.
All applicants, including those currently enrolled at Hunter College, must file a City University of New York (CUNY) Transfer (Advanced Standing) application. The application may be obtained at Hunter’s 68th Street campus in the college’s Welcome Center, Room 100 North Building, (212) 772-4490, online at http://admissions.hunter.cuny.edu, at CUNY’s Office of Admission Services, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, New York NY 10036, (212) 997-2869 and at all CUNY campuses. You can also apply online at www.cuny.edu.
The transfer application and required supporting academic records must be mailed to the University Application Processing Center, PO Box 359023, Brooklyn, New York, 11235-9023 by March 1. Applications that arrive after March 1 are not given priority consideration and are processed on a space available basis. Applicants with completed applications by the deadline date can expect to be notified no later than May 1.
Students who have not completed the prerequisite course requirements to be considered for admission to the NFS major may wish to transfer to Hunter College as liberal arts and science students. These students should follow the same transfer admission process detailed above for the following year.
CUNY students with an earned AA or AS degree in fall 2003 and after are exempt from the Core requirements of the GER but must fulfill the graduation requirements of significant writing, and pluralism and diversity. Students must have successfully completed the other prerequisites before applying as a NFS major. Transfer students who have not earned a degree, or who have earned an associate degree from a non-CUNY institution are required to complete the Hunter GER requirements in order to graduate.
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