I thought it may seem like a pretentious way to start off this blog, but this phrase has been a mantra for how I have hoped to live my life. One of the greatest changes I wanted to see is the reduction of easily treatable or preventable diseases that account for a large portion of the global disease burden.
I recently finished my undergraduate work and graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Anthropology at the end of the Fall semester of 2007. I started out as a biology major, but I switched after taking a few anthropology classes. After meeting Dr. Jackson, my current mentor, I knew I had change majors. I really enjoyed my time studying anthropology, which is more than I can say for most of my time in biology. To be fair, however, having finished a pathogenic microbiology not too long ago and having enjoyed it, I think my maturity level had no small role in it all, which is slightly embarrassing to admit. Another reason I switched to Anthropology was so I could graduate in a reasonable amount of time, as opposed to spending another year finishing a biology degree. That having been said, if I could do it again, I would probably take that extra year to minor in public health and get my pre-med program on paper. Nevertheless, I do not regret my choice in studying anthropology, a course of study that to me, felt like being at home.
After I graduated, I tried to move into public health. I had studied the interactions of humans and disease in anthropology, and public health is a very sociological field, so I did not and still do not see the shift as very extreme, but On paper, it's a bit different. I wound up working for a newly hired professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health named Dr. Haider and I spent about 7 months working with him on various public health issues from a competitive grant proposal from the CDC on pandemic flu preparation, to editing articles on the diffusion of innovations. I even got to work on program development with the formation of a global health graduate certificate program. Overall, my experience with Dr. Haider was inspirational. I got to work with the Maryland Department of Health, the pandemic flu preparedness program, and see Hans Rosling give one of his famous lectures
at the Swedish Embassy.During that time, I also applied to schools of public health. I put a lot of my hopes into the University of Maryland's newly founded school of public health. It was a mistake, and I should have applied to far more schools than I did. I also came to the belief that I need more field experience, which brings me to where I am now.
On September 10th, I'm leaving for a public health internship at the University of Buea in Cameroon to work with pregnant women with HIV and possibly malaria. I've got to admit that I'm not as excited as I think I should be, but that doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to this internship. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm eager to discover it. Along the way, I hope to document as much as I can. I'm not sure how much internet access I will have, but I intent to use every opportunity to update this piecemeal memoir.
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