My Experience in Public Health this Summer!

The public health internship I am a part of is MCHC/RISE-UP placed me in Los Angeles with a group of other interns to study and work in this City of Angels. I really don't know how to sum this amazing experience I have had into words but I will try my best to. 

On Mondays and Fridays I am in "class" in the broadest sense. There could be people from different public health organizations coming in to talk to us about their work, leadership training which involves a game called "Starpower" which resembles the American socioeconomic struggles, or a field trip. And then on Tuesday through Thursday, I work at the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA). Yes, I bet you are wondering why does everything I am involved with this summer has such long names. Imagine trying to fit in these names with harsh character limits and you can just see a glimpse of my struggle haha. Anyways, at CCPHA I work in a multitude of realms to prevent childhood obesity. It has provided me with the incredible experience of working in a non-profit organization and seeing how passionate everyone in the organization is about the cause. 

One of my first assignments at CCPHA included giving a presentation to around 300 high school students on the importance of the beverages they are consuming. It was a really great public speaking experience since we really had to employ a plethora of tactics to keep the attention of the students because after all at that age I wasn't listening to anyone or anything either. 

A big aspect of my work at CCPHA includes working within the community to engage the citizens in these critical issues that are affecting their everyday health. This picture is of the Champions Summit and Recognition Ceremony which is an event I worked on. It was so much fun being involved with his event because I love working within the community and just being constantly busy throughout the day. There were over 200 attendees to this event so the whole day was just filled with various errands to do. ALSO, the keynote speaker for the event, Martha Gonzalez, is a BADASS. There is seriously no other words to describe her passion and achievements. Not only is she a Grammy winner (for the band Quetzal which is a rock band committed to use their art as a catalyst for change); she got her Ph.D. in Women Studies; AND she is a Fulbright Scholar! I was so moved by her talk, she is such a motivational individual! 

This is me at the Health Summit that I worked on!

All in all I have learned that working within public health every day is different. Just the other day I was assisting on a video shoot for a public service announcement. Then a couple of weeks ago I was meeting with City decision makers to discuss grant opportunity and garner support. I have had such a blast and couldn't have asked for a better internship placement coupled with the fact that I get to be in LA! I will post more on all of the fun things I've gotten the opportunity to do in LA!

Summer Internship // MCHC/RISE-UP!

First off, I would like to apologize for not posting for a while. A lot have been going on in my life and I just couldn't keep up with everything. That's always my excuse I know, but I was trying to balance my public health internship, being adventurous in LA, and working on my secondaries. I will post more about everything I promise, but today's post will focus on the summer internship I got accepted into and how everything is going. 

In another prior post, I talked about Summer Internships and my process of applying and which one I applied to. I did not realize it at the time, but the 3 programs I applied for were all part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Undergraduate Public Health Scholars program. I received acceptance into MCHC/RISE-UP which stands for Maternal Child Health Careers/ Research Initiative for Student Enhancement Undergraduate Program. Yup! It's a mouthful so I will just refer to it as RISE-UP from here on out. You know a program is impressive that you have to shorten their acronym ;)! Haha joking... but not really I've seriously changed so much for the better because of this program. 

Anyways, to kick off the internship we had orientation week in Baltimore since the program is through the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins. I have never met such an incredible group of individuals who are all super passionate about bettering the communities around them AND they were the funnest people I have been around. There is truly never a dull moment with them. 

Johns Hopkins hospital tour was amazing, it is incredible how much history has happened here!

During orientation week, we got to meet amazing people who are fighting health disparities and hear their stories. I loved being on Johns Hopkins' campus, the city, the people, just everything about Baltimore was perfect to me. This has definitely been a motivational force as I'm sitting here filling out the secondary for Johns Hopkins haha! 

Next up during orientation week was Atlanta to visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. I especially loved this week as it allowed everyone in the program to bond with one another and further enhanced my summer experience. HOWEVER! They do not call it "Hot-lanta" for no reasons! And I thought Arizona's heat was bad... Atlanta makes AZ weather feels like a walk to through the South Pole since the humidity killed me haha. 

Just the orientation week alone has made this such a loong post. I will post more this upcoming week about the work I am doing in the community through this internship! And I will also talk more about the med school application process as I am going through it right now!