Sadaf Saleem

When I started looking at universities in Scotland there weren’t many that offered a Master’s in Food and Nutrition. A deciding factor for me was the placement option, when I saw the option of an industry placement during my studies at Abertay, I didn’t think twice, I knew this was something I wanted to do. The modules studied on the course gave me insight into new areas and explored subjects that I was interested in learning more.

The MSc Food Quality, Safety and Innovation degree is multidisciplinary, you cover different aspects about the food industry and nutrition, you also get the chance to explore other areas such as legal aspects of food, plant safety and environmental impact. The optional modules you can take gives you the chance to study something new, it allowed me to change from a nutritional background to new product development (NPD), letting me see different processes and stages of producing a product to launching it, giving me insight I didn’t have before. If I hadn’t studied the NPD module, I wouldn’t have been able to go into the food industry, the course was important with helping me pursue my current job.

The placement that you get the option to do has been key within my career development. I worked with Tayside Cuisine, the work I did there is very similar to what I do now. It didn’t take me long to get my first job out of university, after graduation I worked as an NPD assistant, my success with the position was due to my knowledge and experience gained from my studies and industry placement. Employers want to see your knowledge and experience; the questions I was asked at my interviews were all things I had studied on the course. My degree helped me understand the procedure behind the food products, something I didn’t have prior knowledge of.

My current job is a Specification Technologist working with Bakkavor, a multinational company. This role focuses on NPD, and I want to continue working towards a food technologist career. My degree has helped me get to the starting point of this, the first step of my career. Without this I would not be able to pursue my dream career.

At Abertay you don’t feel pressured, all the staff are extremely helpful, you create personal connections with your lecturers, and they make studying at Abertay such an enjoyable experience. Professor Alberto Fiore and John Wilkin really inspired me, they are always ready to help, and they put the spark in you. I keep in contact with them, and they are still my guiding light.

As an international student you have a lot going on in your mind, but the staff are there to help you, when I was applying they helped me through the whole process, this made me want to go to Abertay even more, I knew if they were this helpful over the phone, they would be just as or even more helpful on campus- and they were! Coming from a different country I thought I may feel alone, but there is a community feel at Abertay, everything is so positive and as a student you are empowered and will grow professionally and personally. 

View the MSc Food Quality, Safety and Innovation course