UDMessenger

Volume 13, Number 3, 2005


Connections to the Colleges

Ingredients of a rewarding career

An applied science program that some call one of the best-kept secrets in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources is providing many of its graduates with multiple job offers, high starting salaries and interesting lifetime careers.

The major in food science and technology embraces chemistry, biology, engineering and math. Those areas of study combine to teach students ways to process, preserve, evaluate, package and distribute one of the world’s most valuable and delightful natural resources—food. And, because food never will go out of style, graduates of the program can look forward to an abundance of well-paid jobs in a field that touches the lives of people everywhere, every day.

Cathy Davies, an assistant professor of food chemistry who stays in touch with students who have graduated from the program, says many of their first job experiences give a new meaning to the term “entry-level.”

“Starting salaries for many of these students are between $40,000 and $45,000, and the impression I get from them is that they are doing something important right away,” she says. “One of my students even had a lab built for him as part of his agreement with the employer.”

Since its inception at the University in 1972, the food science program has produced 128 graduates with bachelor’s degrees and 43 recipients of graduate degrees, Dallas Hoover, professor of food microbiology, says. Currently, 12 undergraduates are enrolled in the program.

“If we could sell the program based on the job market, we’d be the largest program in the College,” Hoover says. “Parents of high school students who visit UD love our statistics—availability and salaries for jobs—but the key is the student making it through rigorous calculus, biochemistry and food engineering courses.”

Both Davies and Hoover say food science commonly is confused with nutrition, culinary arts or hotel and restaurant management. The problem, they say, is that high school guidance counselors and others often know little about the field and the careers for which it prepares students.

In food science, Davies says, students spend much of their time in laboratory settings, testing such things as how food behaves under certain conditions, what factors affect shelf life and how to make a canned soup, for example, taste homemade. Before graduating, every student must participate in a capstone course, a real-world simulation course in which food science students work as a team to design and implement a new food product, flavor or package — from conception through testing, processing, packaging and marketing.

Students in the program can choose to concentrate in food science or food technology, which includes fewer science courses and more emphasis on business, nutrition and marketing, or they can combine the two concentrations. Graduates typically find jobs with food manufacturers or with such regulatory agencies as the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Yet, because of the lack of knowledge about food science, Hoover says students interested in becoming chefs sometimes enroll in the program, only to find the math and science aspects of the major unexpectedly challenging.

“The reverse is also true,” Davies says. “Career counselors often put students who would flourish in food science into programs such as restaurant management or food service.”

Kara Kern, AG ’05, a food science and technology major, says the student most likely to enjoy success in the program is one who likes math, chemistry, biology and food. While Kern always has preferred math and science to other subjects, she says, she chose the program primarily because she loves food.

Kern, who is interested in a career in product development, says her favorite aspect of the program is the emphasis on laboratory work.

“Working in the lab is fun because it’s more like a kitchen and entails working with food ingredients rather than harsh chemicals,” she says. “Plus, the benefits of being a food science major include attending food expos and receiving and sampling new and improved products from all over the world.”

While some students enroll for their love of food, others come for their love of science. Tim Ward, AG ’03, says he was planning on a career as a chemical engineer until the day he came across a pamphlet about the food science and technology program.  

“It seemed interesting, so I signed up,” he says. “Once I took the labs, there was no question that this was the path for me.”

Today, Ward says he is enjoying a rewarding career in the applications department of the flavor ingredient supplier Citrus and Allied Essences. He says the company is relatively small, allowing him to do a grab bag of tasks. His primary job responsibility is to travel to manufacturing companies and demonstrate, through taste applications, how new flavors work in such products as beverages, ice creams, pies and cakes.

“I take about five business trips a year to places all over the country,” Ward says. “But, the best part of my job is that I learn something new every day. The flavor industry is so complex that I never do the same thing twice.”

Latonia Polk, AG ’05, says her first visit to UD as a prospective student left a positive impression.

“I like all the great leadership, community service and career exploration opportunities that the University has provided,” she says.

Ward says he and his co-workers describe their jobs as “the ultimate applied science.”

—Jaime Cherundolo, AS ‘03