Anticipated to graduate this Summer 2020, online M.S. Community Nutrition student, Susan Moore, is currently employed by UGA Extension as the Laurens County Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Agent. 

Moore has always felt called to earn her degree in higher education and has used the Community Nutrition degree to advance her career as a FACS agent. For her, earning her degree online made sense because of her distance from campus, and she had always dreamed of getting her Master’s from UGA after graduating from Armstrong Atlantic State University (currently Georgia Southern University) in Savannah, GA over 20 years ago. 

As a FACS Agent, Moore’s primary focus areas are Food Safety, Nutrition, and Chronic Disease Prevention, and she says, “The courses I have taken so far have been so helpful to me professionally and personally. As an educator, I feel like it is my responsibility to stay up to date on the most current information and trends, and I feel like working on my Master’s Degree has further enriched my knowledge.”

Her biggest advice for other online students is “Don’t be afraid to ask for help.” Moore has found a mentor in Donna Holcomb, Project Coordinator in UGA’s Department of Foods and Nutrition, and says she has been so helpful from answering questions about the application process to helping navigate online registration among so many other things.  

Moore is able to incorporate her knowledge into her day-today responsibilities as a UGA Extension agent and says the courses she’s taken have benefitted her in very concrete ways. 

“I’ve learned a lot about doing research, which is a very important part of my job. In one of my classes, I found out about resources to help with tabulating evaluation data. I have also done projects on nutrition and food safety that I will be able to use to teach classes in my community,” says the FACS Agent. 

She hopes that her degree in Community Nutrition will help her be a better FACS Agent and that the people she works with in her community will benefit from the knowledge she has gained in this program. The work FACS Agents do does not go unnoticed as educating people about how even the little changes they make can result in huge differences in their health and wellbeing.

Learn more about UGA’s Online M.S. in Foods and Nutrition, Community Nutrition.