In honor of National Public Health Week, we asked our student ambassadors to share their journeys to the world of public health.
Ahmed Abdel-Aziz, Epidemiology student
I had been interested in creating change when I was younger, and my parents had always wanted me to jump into a career in healthcare. While working in healthcare isn’t something that I am very fond of doing on a daily basis, I felt public health was a much better fit for me as I grew up.
I never really knew much about public health or how much it was impacting our lives as we see today. That was, until a full blown pandemic came into our lives. One of my dad’s friends had also pushed me to look into public health as he works in the field too.
These two things really inspired me to jump into public health at IUPUI, specifically in epidemiology.
Gabby Fleming, Epidemiology student
Gabby chose to share a video of her public health journey.
Kate Colpetzer, Health Services Management student
Kate started out as a clinical healthcare major, as many do. After careful consideration, she realized that clinical care was not for her, and she set out to find her calling. As she was looking into non-clinical healthcare roles, she stumbled upon public health and fell in love.
Now a health services management major, with an epidemiology minor, Kate is working towards a role that she didn’t even know existed before finding public health!
Grace Hicks, Epidemiology student
As someone who is new to the ambassador program, I am super excited to share my story with everyone!
When I was a freshman, I enrolled in a first-year seminar that focused on exploring health careers. Like many people, I was told of clinical health careers in high school so that is what I decided to do. I had no idea what public health had in store for me!
One day, a representative from Fairbanks came to our class. She talked about all of the majors and the impacts that public health had on the community. I was so fascinated and immediately set up meetings and informational interviews to learn more.
I had my “ah-ha” moment when I walked into my first public health class; I knew that this was where I was meant to be.
Lucy Khatib, Epidemiology student
Ever since I was little I was interested in the healthcare field, as well as the diseases that I learned about in history books. To be honest, I didn’t know much about how important the role of public health is until my mom recommended I investigated the major.
Public health is such an expansive field that was a perfect fit for me that combined both the science and humanity aspects. I got to fulfill my middle school love of the bubonic plague, with focusing on epidemiology.
It is great to work in a field that is directly helping communities as well as individual health. Public health will give me a unique view as I continue, hopefully, onto studying medicine.
Shania Miller, Health Services Management student
I decided on my major because I have always had an interest in health care and how the system operates outside of clinical.
I myself have experienced complicated health while trying to navigate through the challenges in health care. This motivates me to improve healthcare for the better by focusing on improving health lteracy, health equity, and access to healthcare.
Being an advocate in making sure to deliver good quality care while reducing healthcare costs and closing disparity gaps is part of my mission as a future healthcare leader.
Jaida Speth, Health Services Management student
I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Health Services Management and a minor in Epidemiology in August and I will be graduating with a Master’s in Health Administration in May.
I knew I wanted to pursue a degree from the Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI when I discovered the impact that alumni are making all over the country. Inspiring change and making an impact on the health of the community that I live in is something that I have been passionate about in my career and a public health degree has laid a solid foundation for issues that impact population health and healthcare systems.
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