End of Week 1 at University of Northern Iowa

          Before I tell you all about the end of my first week at the University of Northern Iowa, I will tell you a little more about myself! I attend Miami University which is located in Oxford, Ohio, but I am from Columbus, Ohio. At Miami, I am a nutrition major with a focus in dietetics, and I absolutely love it! We have a wonderful program with some of the best professors there are. This fall I will be a senior (I can't believe it!) and will have to begin looking at where I want to do my dietetic internship after graduation. Anyway, here is what I have been up to the past few days as a NACUFS intern at UNI:

Thursday, June 6, 2013
Day 2

            Today I worked with Cathy Wylam, who is the Dining Technology Coordinator. She showed me the university's Food Pro system and C-board system. We talked about the different meal plan options that students have on campus, and there are a lot more than what I'm used to at Miami! Cathy showed me how to look at specific student's record of their meal plan usage, and how to make any adjustments to individual's meal plans. I also got to see the Empower system, which is how the university keeps track of it's employees and the hours they work. I then learned about UNI's ID card system, including how to make these cards. It was amazing to see how much really went in to making these cards. In the afternoon, Lisa talked to me a little about her position as administrative dietitian and purchasing manager. We looked more at the Food Pro system, specifically at the nutritional analysis of different menu items. I though it was really neat that a student can click on a menu item and not only is he nutritional information shown, but so is the food label and ingredients list. Lisa also works closely with students who have special diets, and she showed me how she creates individualized menus for some of them. Lisa also showed me a bid for grease pick up at UNI and we looked at the responses to the bid from some companies.

Thursday, June 7, 2013
Day 3

            In the morning, I talked more with Lisa about nutrition and her job on campus. She gave me a project to do, which was to plan a nutrition topic for each week that school was in session this upcoming year, with the information on these topics being displayed around campus on a weekly basis. Then I went to a training session that was led by Cathy Wylam. She was training four students on how to take ID pictures for new students who would be coming to UNI's orientation sessions all throughout the summer. After the training session, I got to go to recipe testing for lunch, which was awesome! The university is putting together a cookbook that contains many of the recipes they serve in the dining halls or at catered events, so the cooks were testing these recipes which had been modified so that people would be able to cook them at home in their kitchens. In the afternoon, I got to help take the pictures for the IDs at an orientation session for transfer students. It was really fun to be able to work with student employees and it was nice to see the transfer student and how excited they were to be at UNI!