Public speaking

Dietetics, especially community dietetics, involves a lot of public speaking. Working with a community population, it's often not cost effective for a dietitian (or intern, or volunteer) to work with people one on one. Group sessions, which involve speaking to many people at the same time, are a cost and time effective way of dispensing nutrition education to a community. So if you're the type of person who becomes very uncomfortable any time they have to give a presentation, be prepared to have to do many, many presentations during an internship. All of the presentations and talks you do during your undergraduate and volunteer work, such as powerpoint presentations, teaching demonstrations, speeches and group lessons will help better prepare you for work during the community rotation of an internship. While I was nervous presenting a talk on calcium to 70 people, due to all of the experience I've had presenting I was able to speak confidently in a daunting setting. So take advantage of your speech classes, your nutrition education and communication classes, and every presentation you have to do in school. They will all serve as good practice for being an intern.