After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering, Reed Vawter landed what you might expect to have been a dream job for someone with his apparent interests. He even stated the career path that took him to Microsoft was one he had “wanted to follow since way back when.”

“After 10 years, I realized it just was not for me,” Vawter said, adding he decided he needed to do something that directly helped people. Coming from somebody else, the statement might sound corny or self-serving, but from Vawter it just seems matter of fact.

About the time he realized he needed a change, Vawter said he was starting to become interested in nutrition. He was talking to a friend about how much of a difference eating right can make in someone’s life and it hit him that here was a subject he was passionate about. After searching around for schools, he came across the Web site for Kenmore’s Bastyr University and felt a strong attraction for the place.

Flash forward two years and Vawter, 33, is set to graduate from Bastyr as a dietician and ready to leave for an internship in Boston at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching institution connected with Harvard University.

Along the way, nominated by the director of his academic department, Vawter earned what the university described as the prestigious Outstanding Student Award for 2009 as presented by the American Diatetic Association.

According to Vawter, the criteria for the award includes academic excellence, leadership and community service. Vawter didn’t mention his grade-point average, but one assumes it is more than respectable.

As for his community service, Vawter has volunteered with a Seattle soup kitchen and at The Landing, a homeless shelter in Bellevue. Vawter added he was lucky enough to make connections with a dietician at Evergreen Hospital and has spent plenty of time learning and volunteering there. He’s taught nutrition classes at local senior centers. And like many other Bastyr students, he’s also done volunteer work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

What is it about the subject of diet and nutrition that so motivated Vawter to leave what he said was a comfortable post at Microsoft?

“It was just realizing how powerful nutrition can be,” Vawter said.

As a society, he contends Americans have become accustomed to going to a doctor’s office with a complaint and expecting that doctor to supply a pill to solve the problem.

“We seem to think health starts at the pharmacy counter,” said Vawter, who argues health is more about the things we put in our mouths besides pills. He is a big believer in avoiding processed, prepackaged or boxed foods, in shopping the perimeter of the supermarket.

“By definition, processed food is lower quality food,” he said. “It’s just not real food.”

Talking again about the end of his tenure with Microsoft, Vawter said the decision to leave wasn’t necessarily a quick one. But he started to think about which decision he might regret when he gets older, having stuck with Microsoft or having made the leap to Bastyr? He said once the answer to the question struck him, his final decision became an easy one.

Speaking of next moves, Vawter admits he knows next to nothing about the Boston area he’ll soon call home. He said he could have done his internship in his native California where he still has plenty of family.

“But that would have been the safe thing to do,” adds Vawter, who clearly just isn’t big on standing pat.

“I never want to know what I’m going to do with my life. I just want to follow it and see what happens … Not knowing leaves you free.”