What other AHEC programs have you participated in? CHIP is my first AHEC program!
What’s your hometown? Coal City, Illinois
What school are you attending? UW-Platteville
What is your intended profession/what’s your major? Biology/ Health Sciences
Why do you want to be a health professional? Why is it important to you? I want to be a health professional because I want to be able to bring my talents and background to a field that has the potential to be changed for the better. This is important to me because in rural areas and/or areas of underserved populations, there is a lacking in the health attention that they receive and to me this is a major problem in the system. I genuinely love to care for people and hope to one day see a change in the health field so that everyone is bettered from it.
Where is your Community Health Internship Program (CHIP) host site? Schreiner Memorial Library
What are you doing there? I am currently involved in coordinating programs for all ages, especially programs that involve public health. The program that I was able to plan myself focused on having open events in the community in which I brought in prominent figures in the area with a lot of knowledge on health to talk about going forward from COVID and mental health. I wanted to be able to have talks in which the community could understand the importance of getting vaccinated or at least to consider it, and to have talks about how mental health going forward is also of importance.
Why did you want to participate in CHIP? I wanted to participate in CHIP to get a better understand and knowledge within regards to what public health in rural communities involves.
What's something you hope to learn/have learned that will impact your future work? Something that I have learned is that it is great to be able to listen to more and more people talk about their lives and to ask them questions. Many people come from completely different backgrounds and lifestyles, that it is important to really listen to them and ask all of the right questions. This will help my future in the health field because through this internship I have been able to work with a lot of different people and been able to maintain those mature conversations with them.
What are you most looking forward to/what has been your favorite part so far? My favorite part is being able to interact with the whole community and get to hear their voices and perspectives.
What advice would you give to younger students who are interested in working in public health? To be willing to explore all fields and paths. Don't automatically write something off just because you think that you won't like it.