A New Class, A New Chapter: Food Science Welcomes Its Freshers

On a warm Wednesday morning, January 21, 2026, the lecture room in the Department of Food Science and Technology carried a familiar but always stirring energy, the quiet anticipation of beginnings. First-year students, freshly admitted and freshly curious, gathered for their departmental orientation, marking their formal welcome into a discipline that sits at the crossroads of science, society, and sustenance.

The occasion was both ceremonial and conversational. Representatives of the Association of Food Science and Technology (AFST), the student leadership body, opened the session with words that were at once practical and reassuring. They spoke not only of lectures and laboratories, but of belonging, how to find one’s footing, build friendships, manage time, and survive the early missteps that inevitably accompany university life. Their message was clear: no one navigates this journey alone.

Faculty members soon joined the welcome, offering the students a wider lens through which to view the path ahead. Led by Prof. Jacob Agbenorhevi, the department’s leadership team, Dr. Nana Pepra-Ameyaw, Dr. Lewis Zaukuu, and Dr. Owusu-Mensah, took turns demystifying the world the students were stepping into. They spoke candidly about academic expectations, class enrollment procedures, examinations, and the university policies that shape student life. But beyond rules and routines, they painted a broader picture of possibility.

Food science, the students were reminded, is not merely a course of study; it is a gateway. The faculty highlighted career prospects that stretch from food manufacturing and quality assurance to research, entrepreneurship, public health, policy, and innovation. In their remarks, one sensed a deliberate effort to connect theory to impact, to show how equations, experiments, and reports ultimately translate into safer foods, stronger industries, and healthier communities.

Adding depth and continuity to the occasion was the presence of the former Head of Department, Prof. Faustina Wireko-Manu. With the authority of experience and the warmth of mentorship, she offered advice that extended beyond the classroom. Her counsel emphasized discipline, resilience, and curiosity, qualities that, she suggested, matter just as much as grades in shaping a successful food scientist.

By the end of the orientation, the room felt different. The initial nervousness had softened into something steadier: a sense of purpose. The freshers left not just informed, but invited, into a department that values scholarship, community, and the long view of what food science can accomplish.

For the newest members of the Department of Food Science and Technology, January 21 was more than an orientation date. It was the first page of a story now theirs to write, one experiment, one lecture, and one discovery at a time.