Students with bachelor's degrees in a variety of fields are welcome to study in the department. An internship is required for the Master of Agriculture. A thesis, along with at least 24 semester hours of course work, is required. The master's degree in food technology emphasizes the technological aspects of food handling. Knowledge of the physical and biological sciences, economics, and engineering is applied to and coordinated with food development, processing, packaging, quality control, and distribution.
Research programs involve food microbiology, histology, chemistry, and commodity products.
Consumer demands for a variety of highly nutritious and convenient foods of uniformly high quality create many and varied career opportunities in the food and allied industries. These careers include management, research and development, process supervision, quality control, procurement, distribution, sales, and merchandising. Candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Animal Science may specialize in one of several areas of interest such as animal genetics, animal nutrition, reproductive or environmental physiology, or meat science. No foreign language requirement exists, but such a requirement may be instituted at the discretion of the student's advisory committee. Interested persons should contact the department graduate advisor.