A Week in the Life of an MPH Student

In graduate school (or professional school) some weeks are far busier than others.  What graduate school is like depends a lot on the time of the semester, and especially on what you become involved with outside of class.  This is a really awesome time because you have tons of opportunities to get involved in different things – leadership, volunteer work, involvement with local organizations etc. - and it is also a time when many of us have a lot of control over our own schedules and can be flexible enough to do a lot of these things.  Graduate school is also a time to learn time-management skills.  This can be a bigger challenge than it sounds – take for example, me writing this blog at 6pm on a Friday.  It can be super busy but all the things that keep you busy are all very exciting and fun and I’d much rather feel a little too busy sometimes than give up any one of the things I’m busy doing.  To illustrate I’ll run through my week:

Monday:  The week started off not to bad, I went to the College of Public Health Building in the morning and did some work for my position as a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) for the MPH Program.  I had my Environmental Health class at 11:00 – conveniently in the same building.  After class I went to our weekly GRA meeting and discussed activities for the month and upcoming week.  Then on Monday afternoon, my boyfriend and I drove over to Des Moines to see the President speak at the final campaign rally that night.  We got back to Iowa City about 1:00 or 1:30am but how often can you hear the President give his last campaign speech?   

Tuesday: I woke up feeling a little tired but excited to watch the election news roll in that day.  I worked on some reading for one of my classes and wrote an online discussion post.  At noon we had our bi-monthly MPH Professional Development Seminar, which featured three students talking about their practicum projects.  After lunch I walked over to the hospital where I met with a faculty member in the medical school who is helping me with a research project.  The rest of the afternoon was spent running errands, and watching the election news before finally turning the TV off after the speeches ended about 1:30 again – this is way later than I usually stay up.

Wednesday: Wednesdays are my busiest days for in-class time, I have Environmental Health again early in the day and then Intro to Public Health from 5-7:30 in the evening.  In-between the two I went over the medical school for a brown bag lunch – a group of about 8 students, with a general pediatrician who shared her experiences and advice with us.  I also spent a while that afternoon reading some journal articles and working on some homework assignments.

Thursday:  This was a crazy day of running around.   In the morning a couple other students and I participated in a program for high school students interested in health sciences careers organized by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).  We talked to them about public health and our exciting new undergrad-to-grad program and we also ran them through an infectious disease outbreak scenario.  Thursday was also the Fall Colloquium at the College of Public Health, this is an annual event that gives students a chance to hear about current research and programs and to network with public health practitioners in the state.  Finally, Thursday night I joined the Johnson County Medical Society for a dinner and talk from Dr. Keith Mueller, the head of the department of Health Management and Policy at the College of Public Health, and he spoke to us about implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other policies affecting physician’s. 

Friday:  We hosted visit-day today at the College, an event for undergraduates and others to hear from students and faculty in all of our departments and programs.  Several of my weekly assignments are due each week on Fridays but thankfully I had most of them done ahead of time this week.  After visit-day wrapped up, I headed home where I had intended to listen to some lectures for an online class but Friday afternoon just hit me so I watched a little TV instead.  This evening is the College of Public Health Semi-Formal! This is a social event for enrolled students to get to know each other outside of class and have some fun.

Saturday:  Tomorrow I am up bright and early (for a Saturday at least) to take patient histories at the UI Mobile Clinic.  This is a program that students from all over the University are involved in.  This gives me a chance to keep some of my clinical skills fresh in my mind and to see patients which I really love.

Sunday: This will be time to get organized for next week, figure out what assignments are due and to hopefully finally get some grocery shopping and laundry done. 

Until next time - Thanks for Reading!