Starting in 2024, anybody who wants to become a registered dietitian nutritionist will have to earn a master’s degree. In a way, it’s like they are moving the goal posts, but Viterbo University has come up with a way to keep students in the game without having to go into overtime.

With the 2020-21 school year, Viterbo has introduced an option that will ensure students can become RDN’s in five years through a new accelerated 4+1 program. Through this new program, students will earn both a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition Sciences and a Master of Science in Community Medical Dietetics degree in five years.

Viterbo is one of the few institutions in the country to offer a 4+1 dietetics program like this. Most other programs take six years.

Once certified, an RDN can provide medical nutrition therapy to people with health conditions, whether in a clinic/hospital setting or in private practice. An RDN also might find work offering nutritional education and expertise to public health departments, food-related businesses, schools, or nursing homes.

The change in RDN requirements came about recently after the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics announced it will begin requiring new registered dietitians to have a master’s degree beginning in 2024. Roughly half of all practicing RDN’s today already have master’s degrees.

Viterbo students interested in becoming registered dietitians will have the option to complete their bachelor’s degree with guaranteed early entry into the one-year master’s degree program, which also includes 1,200 ACEND-accredited supervised practice hours, also called a dietetic coordinated internship, which is required to be eligible to take the Registration Examination for Dietitians.

“The Viterbo program allows students to complete all of the requirements to become a registered dietitian nutritionist all in one place, so there is no worry about applying to separate master’s or required internship programs that have less than a 50 percent acceptance rate,” said Viterbo faculty member Maria Morgan-Bathke. “Our program is streamlined so students graduate in five years.”

All of the graduate level courses in the fifth year of the program are offered online, which means students can complete their clinical internship anywhere in the country. “We have sent students to Las Vegas, Florida, Connecticut, Oregon, and everywhere in between,” Morgan-Bathke said.

Students pursuing a dietetics degree at Viterbo also will benefit from state-of-the-art food science labs, nutrition assessment technology, personalized learning from faculty with a wealth of experience in the field, and hands-on field practicum hours for career preparation.

Kendal Schmitz, who graduated in May 2019 with a community medical dietetics degree, said she was glad she chose Viterbo for her undergraduate training.

“All of the faculty at Viterbo are very helpful and want to see their students succeed. The professors are willing to go above and beyond to help a student succeed,” Schmitz said. “At Viterbo I’ve been exposed to many opportunities that I may not have gotten if I went to a bigger university. For example, I participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program and conducted research under the guidance of a faculty member. I was also able to pick where I wanted to complete my internships.”

Current Viterbo dietetics students and professionals with a bachelor’s degree also are eligible for the master’s program.