Majoring in Public Health During a Pandemic
My interest in public health started before COVID-19. I was curious about getting into the healthcare field. Even though I wanted to work in health, I knew I had no interest in taking on a healthcare professional role (i.e. doctor, physical therapy, nursing, etc.). Science was not my forte, but policy was. Before the start of my third year, I decided to take on public health policy as my second degree.
I was studying abroad in Singapore when I first started public health policy. My first exposure to public health would be through a theoretical and global lens. At the National University of Singapore, I took courses on global health, health economics, and aging. The curriculum was very interesting, and the professors knew how to encourage us to engage in the material. I had fallen in love with public health. In class, we learned about modifiable risk factors for noncommunicable diseases. It made me more aware of how prevention is far more superior than treatment. I was also aware of my own health behaviors and quickly modified the poor health choices that I was making. The power of prevention made me want to explore the field even further.
When I came back from the states, I worked on fulfilling the prerequisites to declare public health as my major. It was a long and drawn out process because I was unable to take these courses simultaneously. As such, I decided that another way I could gain better exposure is through internships. In the program of public health, one of the core required courses is an upper division writing class called practicum. Practicum is taken simultaneously with a public health internship. Unfortunately, I was not able to take the practicum courses, but I applied to several practicum sites. I was interning at several practicum locations without taking the course.
Although I was not receiving any academic credit for the work that I was doing, I still found myself learning a lot. At Prescribe Wellness, I developed a hypertension management campaign to help patients take the precautions to manage their condition. At UCI Health, I learned how to interact with patients and healthcare professionals in a hospital setting. At American Heart Association, I learned about how to create carefully thought-out outreach programs to educate and inform the community about health. All of these experiences helped me build both soft and hard skills to add to my toolkit. They would serve me well into the future.
Once COVID hit, it became more clear how important the field of public health is. Since we were all experiencing the pandemic, it was easy to refer to the pandemic as an example of why it is important to come up with interventions and solutions that are geared towards prevention. With all of the courses that I was taking, it was easy for me to apply these skills and theories that I had acquired to real life. I began to educate the people around me about how important it is to socially distance and wear a mask.
Although the pandemic has negatively impacted all of our lives, the positive side of this is that I am able to witness public health in action. UCI has one of the best undergraduate public health programs. The professors are extremely intelligent and great at teaching, and the program is structured so that you have skills that you can apply once you graduate from college. If you are interested in preventative medicine, I would highly recommend the UCI Program in Public Health!
