How we teach you
Interview with Part 2 Students
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With tuition fees set to rise it has never been more important to ensure that as a student you receive genuine value for money from your chosen degree course. For this reason The Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences at The University of Reading offers students on average 25 hours teaching per week in their first two years of study.
Within the department we have structured our courses in such a way to ensure the right balance of lectures, seminars and practical classes. It is down to the quality of facilities, and tuition by leading food scientists within the industry, that ensures you will maximise your time and make the most of your opportunities at Reading.
Although the food courses at Reading vary the information below gives you an overview of just what your time will be spent doing while here at Reading;
First Year
The first year aims to ensure that students have a firm grounding in the core science, research and practical skills necessary them to go on and make the most of their degree.
Students will encounter modules such as 'Farm to Fork', which incorporates field trips away from the classroom and into industry. The module also focuses heavily on discussion and research surrounding food security to give students an understanding of just how food gets to consumers' plates.
Year one will also give students their first opportunity to venture into the pilot plant and will focus on processes such as the making of ice cream, drying coffee and canning baked beans. All this fun of course has a practical application and it gives students the grounding they need for the remainder of their degree course and career.
Second Year
With the core skills under their belts, students' progress into the second year with a much clearer understanding and direction, students can then begin to specialise in that chosen field.
For example, students studying Food Science with Business will find an increasing amount of time being devoted to business based modules allowing students to develop the key economic and business principles that will allow them to apply their knowledge directly back to Food.
Likewise for Nutrition-based courses, students will delve deeper into the science behind food, health issues surrounding the industry, and what part as a Nutritionist you could play in influencing product design, consumer choice, and the nation's health.
Students studying Food Technology with Bioprocessing will spend a large amount of their time in the pilot plant exploring all that it has to offer, whilst those studying pure Food Science will be able to balance their time in the pilot plant with the development of analytical and experimental skills in the laboratory.
Industrial Placement (optional)
Although this year is optional, most students choose to spend a year working in industry on a paid industrial placement.
At Reading you will receive dedicated support from the Department's Head of Industrial Training who is employed full-time to help you find an industrial placement that will be successful for both you and your employer. Please click to find out more about our 1 year industry placement
Final Year
The final year encompasses all the knowledge and skills that students have built up over the course of their degree. This skill set draws on lectures, research, experiments, teamwork and, in many cases, industry experience while on placement.
Much of the final year is focused on the student's own research project, where students can choose either to do a literature based review, or more commonly, a practical research-based project. Students become part of the lab team associated with their project and they will be working closely with PhD students and postdocs to get a feel for what cutting edge research is actually like. The topics of research projects are extremely diverse, with students investigating anything from sensory qualities of foods, the effect of particular foods on human gut flora, being responsible for a human nutrition trial, improving aspects of the food chain or looking at novel packaging solutions to name but a few. Undergraduate projects are frequently published in research journals, which indicate the high quality of the work that some final year students produce.
Students also undertake our new product development exercise to develop an innovative food product, where they work in teams to create a product in line with a project brief to mimic the process as it would happen in Industry. The students have to develop a concept and recipe, write the product specification including production details and hygiene/safety requirements, develop the packaging and outline the likely marketing strategy