Uni Stuff > General University Discussion and Queries
Best Uni in Victoria for Food Science
DogBlackTheBlackDog:
I'm in the scholars program of Bachelor of Nutrition Science at Monash and I really, really recommend it. If you don't want to be a dietician, I'd suggest looking into the normal pathway, don't do the scholars program. The Monash course is incredibly hands on as you get to do research and/or placement as a part of your course (depending on what you choose).
I would not recommend Fed Uni since reputation-wise, it can be easily seen as a degree mill rather than a legitimate institution.
ramadani:
--- Quote from: DogBlackTheBlackDog on January 01, 2021, 09:27:55 am ---I'm in the scholars program of Bachelor of Nutrition Science at Monash and I really, really recommend it. If you don't want to be a dietician, I'd suggest looking into the normal pathway, don't do the scholars program. The Monash course is incredibly hands on as you get to do research and/or placement as a part of your course (depending on what you choose).
I would not recommend Fed Uni since reputation-wise, it can be easily seen as a degree mill rather than a legitimate institution.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for your advice. Thoughts on RMIT BSci (Applied Sciences) that I posted? Thought about just doing a broad science degree, so I am not limited.
keltingmeith:
--- Quote from: ramadani on December 30, 2020, 09:59:24 pm ---Would love to be a laboratory technician, and hopefully management role once I get the experience. There is quite a lot of milk processing factories around my area.
--- End quote ---
Sorry for my late response - took me a while to get to a laptop, and this reply needs some really thought out stuff.
Food science is super, SUPER, niche. There's lots of industry out there, yes, but the actual science behind food (remembering that universities are an academic institution) isn't that deep. If you're lucky, some of your classes might have some food related stuff in there (eg, Monash Chemistry offers a "Food Chemistry" unit), but you'll be hard pressed to find a whole degree out there just for food science. So, how do you get into food science if there's no degree for it?
Well, it's still just a science, so that's what you should be looking to get - a science degree. Especially since your initial thoughts are you want to be a lab technician - that's just a straight science degree. Plus, if you get a more typical Bachelor of Science, you don't just limit yourself to working in food labs (assuming you find a Food Science specific degree) - you might not like the idea of working in other labs, but if nothing else, it gives you experience and a stable job with steady income while you try and find that dream job.
Now then, degrees I'd stay away from: nutrition. I see it getting discussed a lot - nutrition is very specifically about how the human body reacts to different types of food. Valuable? Sure, but it's not food science, and there will be a limited supply of nutritionists on hand for regulating that kind of stuff in any food industry. More importantly, you're not going to become a lab tech if you're the nutritionist, it's going to be more of a consultancy role. However, if you choose to do a bachelor of science, you could also still pick up some nutrition subjects and get the best of both worlds - I'm not sure how many, though, as it will depend on the university.
The next degree I'd stay away from: food science degrees. As above, they're far too specialised, you're not going to get a wholistic learning experience from them, and you've really stressed you want to go to a good uni. Here's the thing - usually the universities that offer these kinds of hyper-specialised degrees are a little shoddy, and so they play to their strengths by offering hyper-specialised degrees in some of the few fields they're good at. Would you likely still get a valuable degree at the end? Unless you plan to go do commerce at the top 4, yeah, your degree will still be valuable and useful. But if you do care about university rankings, then those places are a no go. You may also find some science degrees with a "Food Science" major (major=a collection of units you take all in one subject, about 1/3 of the length of your degree. I have a major in statistics - this means I spent 1/3 of my whole bachelor of science just studying maths and statistics) - these are probably fine, but again, I think it's in your best interest to study just a bachelor of science at a bigger uni. So, one uni you've brought up a bit - RMIT's Bachelor of Applied Science. I wouldn't recommend this degree, but it's not a bad option.
The kind of degree you want to be looking for is a general science degree, and you want to be studying some form of chemistry which you can support with relevant biology - say some microbiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, or anything else that might tickle your fancy. Particularly if you're interested in working at one of those milk processing factories - they're going to require you have an understanding of physical and analytical chemistry in particular for the kind of job you seem to be aiming for. But also, remember - what you exactly study isn't that important, as long as it's roughly in the right area. Your place of employment are going to teach you most of your skills on-the-job, and they just rely on the degree to make sure you have a background of information.
With all that in mind, my recommendation would be to study at Melbourne, Monash, or the Bachelor of Applied Chemistry at RMIT. You mention distance being a mitigating factor - FU isn't a bad place to get a degree, and if you're interested in working near where you live and this is the closest uni to you anyway, you'll probably find most workers at those plants (if they're locally born) got their degree at that same campus (though it was probably still Monash Gippsland when they went). Having said that, they're Bachelor of Science doesn't contain much of the chemistry you'll likely be needing for where you aim to be working, so you'd be better off going for the food science course - which again, I don't recommend, because it locks you into a field that you may not be able to find a job for.
More than happy to have a quick look at a few other unis if you want - at the end of the day, if you plan on working in an area where you're not going to see much hiring competition (eg, in a regional or remote town), you'll probably be taken just by pure virtue of you having relevant qualifications. However, if you want flexibility of where you might live, it's worth going to study at a bigger university and making a name for yourself. Nobody questions if you did science and if you know your stuff if you do it at RMIT, for example - but as you mentioned before, you show up with an FU degree, and some people's first reactions are going to be, "wait, that's a university? Who names their university FU?"
AngelWings:
--- Quote from: ramadani on December 30, 2020, 09:59:24 pm ---Would love to be a laboratory technician, and hopefully management role once I get the experience. There is quite a lot of milk processing factories around my area.
--- End quote ---
I won’t add much to the course conversation above, but will mention that regardless of the degree you do, try to get as much lab experience (whether via research, internship, placement, work experience, etc.) as you can*. It will be invaluable when you begin to look for employment.
* This is after my own job application experiences about 2 years ago, where I applied for a lot of lab tech positions (though mostly towards health/ hospital rather than the food science industry).
ramadani:
--- Quote from: keltingmeith on January 04, 2021, 03:48:17 pm ---Sorry for my late response - took me a while to get to a laptop, and this reply needs some really thought out stuff.
Food science is super, SUPER, niche. There's lots of industry out there, yes, but the actual science behind food (remembering that universities are an academic institution) isn't that deep. If you're lucky, some of your classes might have some food related stuff in there (eg, Monash Chemistry offers a "Food Chemistry" unit), but you'll be hard pressed to find a whole degree out there just for food science. So, how do you get into food science if there's no degree for it?
Well, it's still just a science, so that's what you should be looking to get - a science degree. Especially since your initial thoughts are you want to be a lab technician - that's just a straight science degree. Plus, if you get a more typical Bachelor of Science, you don't just limit yourself to working in food labs (assuming you find a Food Science specific degree) - you might not like the idea of working in other labs, but if nothing else, it gives you experience and a stable job with steady income while you try and find that dream job.
Now then, degrees I'd stay away from: nutrition. I see it getting discussed a lot - nutrition is very specifically about how the human body reacts to different types of food. Valuable? Sure, but it's not food science, and there will be a limited supply of nutritionists on hand for regulating that kind of stuff in any food industry. More importantly, you're not going to become a lab tech if you're the nutritionist, it's going to be more of a consultancy role. However, if you choose to do a bachelor of science, you could also still pick up some nutrition subjects and get the best of both worlds - I'm not sure how many, though, as it will depend on the university.
The next degree I'd stay away from: food science degrees. As above, they're far too specialised, you're not going to get a wholistic learning experience from them, and you've really stressed you want to go to a good uni. Here's the thing - usually the universities that offer these kinds of hyper-specialised degrees are a little shoddy, and so they play to their strengths by offering hyper-specialised degrees in some of the few fields they're good at. Would you likely still get a valuable degree at the end? Unless you plan to go do commerce at the top 4, yeah, your degree will still be valuable and useful. But if you do care about university rankings, then those places are a no go. You may also find some science degrees with a "Food Science" major (major=a collection of units you take all in one subject, about 1/3 of the length of your degree. I have a major in statistics - this means I spent 1/3 of my whole bachelor of science just studying maths and statistics) - these are probably fine, but again, I think it's in your best interest to study just a bachelor of science at a bigger uni. So, one uni you've brought up a bit - RMIT's Bachelor of Applied Science. I wouldn't recommend this degree, but it's not a bad option.
The kind of degree you want to be looking for is a general science degree, and you want to be studying some form of chemistry which you can support with relevant biology - say some microbiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, or anything else that might tickle your fancy. Particularly if you're interested in working at one of those milk processing factories - they're going to require you have an understanding of physical and analytical chemistry in particular for the kind of job you seem to be aiming for. But also, remember - what you exactly study isn't that important, as long as it's roughly in the right area. Your place of employment are going to teach you most of your skills on-the-job, and they just rely on the degree to make sure you have a background of information.
With all that in mind, my recommendation would be to study at Melbourne, Monash, or the Bachelor of Applied Chemistry at RMIT. You mention distance being a mitigating factor - FU isn't a bad place to get a degree, and if you're interested in working near where you live and this is the closest uni to you anyway, you'll probably find most workers at those plants (if they're locally born) got their degree at that same campus (though it was probably still Monash Gippsland when they went). Having said that, they're Bachelor of Science doesn't contain much of the chemistry you'll likely be needing for where you aim to be working, so you'd be better off going for the food science course - which again, I don't recommend, because it locks you into a field that you may not be able to find a job for.
More than happy to have a quick look at a few other unis if you want - at the end of the day, if you plan on working in an area where you're not going to see much hiring competition (eg, in a regional or remote town), you'll probably be taken just by pure virtue of you having relevant qualifications. However, if you want flexibility of where you might live, it's worth going to study at a bigger university and making a name for yourself. Nobody questions if you did science and if you know your stuff if you do it at RMIT, for example - but as you mentioned before, you show up with an FU degree, and some people's first reactions are going to be, "wait, that's a university? Who names their university FU?"
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Thank you very much for this! I was leaning towards food science as it has biology, chemistry, microbiology, biotechnology, biochemistry, quality assurance units. I am very passionate about this area. I would have loved to study full time at UoM or Monash for example, but I just simply can't relocate. Online study/distance education is my only option at the moment. I definitely want science, not the nutritional side. I have looked at La Trobe's Bachelor of Food and Nutrition and it has way too much nutrition.
I looked at the Bachelor of Food and Nutritional Science Federation University https://study.federation.edu.au/course/DSN5 and Bachelor of Food Science and Nutrition Charles Sturt University https://study.csu.edu.au/courses/allied-health-pharmacy/bachelor-food-science-nutrition
Both of those food science degrees are delivered online where I go on campus like twice a year for 1-2 week block pracs. Thoughts on Charles Sturt University? Lately, I have been hearing good things about them. I wonder if their BSc is online, and even Fed Uni...
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