NYU Steinhardt Food Studies | A Day In the Life

Leigh Ollman is a graduate student in the NYU Steinhardt Food Studies program, intern at the National Young Farmers Coalition, and co-creator of the NYU Urban Farm Lab's Seed Library. Watch as she takes you through a day in her life filled with visits to the Urban Farm Lab, school and internship work, and cooking food from the local farmer's market.
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About NYU Steinhardt's Master's in Food Studies
As the first master’s degree in the US devoted to food scholarship, the Food Studies MA combines approaches from the humanities and social sciences to prepare you to analyze cultural, political, economic, environmental, and geographic approaches to food within local, urban, and global contexts.
Our mission is to teach you how to examine the ways in which individuals, communities, and societies produce, distribute, and consume food. Given the University’s dynamic New York City location, your investigations of these topics will focus on cities as the center of flows of people, produce, and media products.
Students in the Food Studies MA develop a range of skills, including:
-How to apply an interdisciplinary approach to understand the cultural, political, and economic aspects of the food system
-How to discuss with fluency issues related to food sovereignty, sustainability, ethics, and culture
-How to assess policies that shape the food landscape, addressing questions of equity, and preserving cultural values
Course work in the Master of Arts in Food Studies encompasses the study of food systems, culture, and policy, as well as a research component designed to help you learn how to apply class concepts to real-world issues. You will take additional credits in specialization modules likes policy/advocacy, business/social entrepreneurship, and media/cultural analysis, allowing you to dig deeper into your personal interests within the world of food studies.
Graduates of the Food Studies MA find jobs in all areas within the food industry:
-Publishing (magazines, newspapers, online sources)
-Public relations (restaurants, food lobby groups, cookbooks, food organizations)
-Marketing (for restaurants, celebrity chefs, cookbooks, organizations)
-Nonprofit work (education, food/hunger advocacy groups)
-Food operations (wine importers/distributors, restaurants, retail)
-Local and national governmental (city government, federal government, food regulations, relations between industry and government)
-NGO work in advocacy and policy (farming, labor, food scarcity, trade)
Development organizations (community building, national programs, international trade and aid organizations)
-Food production companies (producers and manufacturers of food items)
-Food distribution companies (importation, transportation, and retail)
Learn more: steinhardt.nyu.edu/degree/ma-...
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About the NYU Seed Library
The COVID-19 crisis has inspired a renewed interest in home gardening, with local seed libraries and regional seed companies reporting record requests for seeds. There is concern, though, that many of these newly established gardens may not outlast the current trend, and as a result, carefully cultivated seed stocks could be significantly impacted.
Home gardeners have long been the champions of heirloom seeds, protecting our planet's biodiversity by preserving unique plant varieties that have been handed down for generations. With many people discovering the joy of growing their own food for the first time, it was the perfect moment to build community around seed saving in an effort to create the next generation of seed stewards.
The @NYUrbanFarmLab was in a unique position to address these issues by bringing our community together through an innovative distributed gardening and seed saving initiative. They hope to engage students and alumni in this project through interactive resources that honor the cyclical nature of plants, support sustained home gardening projects, and advance seed conservation efforts.
They are partnering with regional heirloom seed companies, farmers, and other experts to provide interested students, alumni, and community gardeners with a host of online educational tools in order to build an expanded network of seed stewards. The goal is to create a seed library, sponsored by our Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, that can be used as a teaching tool and a lasting resource for our community.