This week I went to a public health talk. There was a keynote speaker, an exhibit, and several public health program recruiters, as well as Bryn Mawr students and advisors who have experience in that area. The keynote speaker, Cynthia Eyakuze (BMC ’94), spoke about her own path to the public health field after graduation from Bryn Mawr. For the first few years after graduation, she worked in lower-level positions in organizations that were doing things in the field of public health that she wanted to be a part of. Even though she was in lower level positions, she still got to be an important part of the missions of the companies with which she was involved because she spoke French. Eventually, she went for a degree in public health and then started to move up in the ranks, eventually becoming Director of the Women’s Rights Program at Open Society Foundations.

I am not going to apply to public health degree programs after Bryn Mawr. I want to apply to occupational therapy school. I went to a public health event because it is one of many things that I am interested in, and maybe down the line, I will decide to move into this field and use the skills that I learned from being in a hospital as a therapist to make a difference in this field. My conversations with the people at the event reinforced that this is possible. Very few of the people there took a straight path to public health. For many of the people I talked to, their path was very circuitous. An interest in people and a passion for health science can combine in a lot of different ways, and one of those ways is in a path to public health. It was encouraging to talk to people who were passionate about the same things that I am, and who have done many different things with that passion; things that I have not thought about doing and may never get the chance to try.

It made me glad that I go to a school where literally hundreds of options are open to me after graduation, and I just have to pick. People with my same degree go into a variety of different fields and do interesting and important things. People with different degrees from me go into the same field that I plan on going into but apply the skills of that field in a way that is unique to their specific background.