The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has two graduate degree programs in nutrition: Human Nutrition (HN) and Nutritional Sciences (NS). HN is housed in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN), and NS is in the Division of Nutritional Sciences (DNS). Please note, DNS is not a department; but it is an interdisciplinary graduate group composed of faculty members from FSHN and from other departments across campus. A primary function of DNS is to allow faculty members who have strong nutrition research programs, but who are not in FSHN, the ability to interact with other nutritionists and to train students and grant graduate degrees in the field of nutrition. In general, graduate students in HN and DNS end up taking many of the same courses for their degrees.
Potential graduate students in nutrition should review the research interests of faculty in both FSHN and DNS and compile a list of potential faculty advisors. If the student finds a faculty research program of interest, and if the faculty member is a member of DNS but not in FSHN, then the only option for this student to earn a nutrition graduate degree under that faculty's supervision is to join the DNS program. However, if the student's interests are in the research area of a faculty member who is a member of both FSHN and DNS, then that student, after evaluating the differences between the HN and NS programs, should talk to the potential faculty advisor as to which option to join. Besides differences in program requirements, there may be a need to join one or the other program based on source of the student’s funding (e.g., fellowship, training grant).