catch up post: Matched!!!

I haven’t posted in a very long time (obviously haha!).  I wonder how many posts I’ve started with the phrase It’s been way tong since I posted?  Probably all of them within the last year at least.

My last semester of undergrad has come and gone.  I didn’t blog once this semester, so that should be a pretty good indication of how rough it really was.  Not only did I take the hardest classes that I’ve taken in my academic career, I also worked my butt off to pay for said classes.

But I made it through in one piece and it’s now summer break!!!

I’ve decided to try to do a few catch up posts in an attempt to recap the semester.  So here we go with the first one!

I got matched to a dietetic internship!!!!

This is no easy feat!  Internships are very competitive and the match rate is only 50% nation wide (at my school the match rate is 60%.  We had 28 people match this year (that I know about. Go T-dub!)  The matching process is computerized and it’s a very nerve wracking process!

You submit your application in February and you don’t find out if you matched until April.  And match day is pretty much the worst day ever.  I was completely useless that day at work and I ended up going home early, haha!  That actually ended up working out well because I got home at 5:55 pm and logged in to the matching website and just kept hitting refresh over and over again until the matches came up at 6:00 pm. I heard that some people who tried to log in right at 6 pm couldn’t get in and had to wait until 9 or 10 to find out if they matched or not. YIKES!

I honestly didn’t expect to get matched this round because the match rate is so low.  I had planned to use this round of matching as a kind of practice so I knew how the process went.  I looked at several different internships, a few of them were out of state.  I felt a bit limited in what I could choose to apply for because some of the internships are VERY expensive and there was no way I could pay out of pocket for an internship, no matter how great or prestigious the internship may be.  So I narrowed it down to some that had financial aid attached to them and some that had enough of a stipend to pay for living expenses, while still having an emphasis in the area I want to spend my career as a RD in(Medical Nutrition Therapy- mostly clinical).  In the end I always kept coming back to the TWU internship and I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and only apply for the TWU internship.  They recommend that you apply to at least four, but I really felt that this internship was where I was supposed to be.  And if I hadn’t matched I was 100% okay with my back up plan, which was to start grad school and reapply for internships next year.

But match day came and I got my match!!

(I still smile when I look at this screen capture from the matching website!)

I am completely over the moon with the choice I made for my internship and I am so honored to have been chosen for one of the spots in this internship (there are only 14 spots).

For most internships you go in, have an orientation, and get started on your internships right away.  They typically last around 10-12 months, depending on the internship.  Mine is just a bit different.  I start in August and I take graduate courses in the fall and spring semesters. In the spring semester I have an internship orientation course that will prepare me to start the actual rotations for my internship.  During this time I will also start work on my thesis (some people wait until after their internship rotations are over to start their thesis and there’s also a coursework option for those that don’t want to do a thesis).  I actually already have a research study lined up with one of my professors and we’re going to start the study in July.  I’m pretty stoked!

Anyway, after my first two semesters in grad school I’ll start my rotations for my internship in June and be finished with the internship and able to sit for my RD exam in December!  After that all that will be left are a few more classes and finishing up my thesis, then I will have my masters in nutrition science along with being a Registered Dietitian.

It’s always been a dream of mine to get my masters degree.  The day I got this letter in the mail I was almost as excited about this as I was about my match for my DI!

I’m so very excited to start the next portion of my journey toward becoming a registered dietitian and also fulfilling my dream of earning a masters degree.  Tune in come fall as I start this wild ride!