Aspiring Nutritionists’ Study: Exploring Student’s Pre-Professional Identity, Motivations and Expectations Relating to Careers in Nutrition

Universities play a crucial role in the formation of pre-professional identity and shaping students for the future workforce. To adequately prepare nutrition students for increasingly diverse workforce environments, we must first understand the attitudes, expectations, and career plans for aspiring nutritionists. This qualitative study employed a general inductive inquiry approach utilising focus group discussions to explore the perspectives of first year nutrition students. Conventional content analysis was undertaken using NVivo, whereby discussion transcripts were coded and categorised following an inductive approach, allowing key themes to emerge. Participants ( n  = 44) were mostly female (87.5%) with a mean age of 27.5 years. Benevolence and a passion for food were key drivers for undertaking a career in nutrition. Professionalism, communication, willingness to learn and a non-judgemental attitude were identified as core skills, whilst positivity, critical thinking, compassion and creativity emerged as key personal attributes. Students saw themselves working in a limited variety of areas, including the food industry, educational roles, sustainable food systems and public health. There is a need to align core competencies with factors that students identify as priorities for practice. Further marketing the diversity of nutrition practice options for people considering the profession is also warranted