In January 2015, Sarah Skinner, a graduate student majoring in nutrition science in Falk College, secured a four- week unpaid internship with St. Vincent Sports Performance, a national and highly competitive nutrition internship with only four interns selected annually.
For Sarah, the St. Vincent internship allowed her to get a real-world glimpse of her career goal of working with a sport team (professional or collegiate level). The internship was a hands-on sports nutrition experience where she worked one-on-one with potential NFL players preparing to enter the NFL Combine, Pro Days, and the Draft. She was able to work under a registered dietitian (RD) as well as the dietitian for the Indiana Pacers NBA team. Working one-on-one with the RD, Sarah learned how to apply her Falk College nutrition knowledge and research background to real-life situations and clients.
Established in 1987, St. Vincent’s has defined the industry of sports performance by combining performance training, medicine, psychology and nutrition; creating a comprehensive service continuum and bringing an extraordinary level of service to amateur, elite and professional athletes. Currently, St. Vincent’s serves over 19,000 athletes and families annually.
In addition to applying the skills learned in the classroom to real experiences in the sports and performance industry, she was also able to learn new skills to prepare for a career in sports dietetics. She worked with a talented team consisting of a dietitian, strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, and sports psychologists. This diverse group of professionals allowed her to see all of the different aspects of successful athletic performance.
Sarah integrated her nutrition knowledge into her internship responsibilities, creating individualized diet plans to suit each athlete’s specific needs. She performed body composition analyses, monitored hydration status, and created personalized daily recovery nutrition snacks. Sarah also learned how to use Nutribase (a diet analysis software) to analyze food logs. She created nutrition tips to be distributed to USA Track and Field, and still found time to perform literature searches to collect research articles on halftime nutrition effectiveness and hydration status in relation to injuries. Shadowing a respected RD and watching how she interacts with her clients, Sarah was immersed in the entire sports nutritionist’s life. For a short six week internship, Sarah learned more about sports nutrition than she ever thought possible.
“I think it is really important for undergraduate students to pursue what they love, even if there are barriers in place. I had no prior sports nutrition experience when applying for this internship with St. Vincent Sports Performance, and had limited confidence in my ability to get picked for it because of this. However, this experience ended up being something I feel is going to be incredibly beneficial for my future career, and I could not be happier that I pursued it!”