Stepping Into Field Experience: Growth, Learning, and New Perspectives
Nour Selmane
1st Year MPH Health Behavior, Health Equity Student
As I get ready for our trip to San Antonio, Texas, I am feeling a mix of excitement, nerves, and curiosity. This is my first real field experience in Public Health at the graduate level, and it feels like a shift from learning concepts in class to applying them in a community setting.
I am excited because of my background in Public Health from my bachelor’s degree, where I focused on community health education. A lot of what I studied focused on understanding health behaviors and how education can impact communities, and I have been wanting to see how that translates into real-world work with people outside an academic setting. This trip feels like that first opportunity to do that.
I am looking forward to working directly with communities and seeing how Public Health tools such as surveys, observations, and community engagement are used in practice. I believe it will be valuable not only to learn what we should do in Public Health, but to experience the challenges of doing it in real time.
At the same time, I am a little nervous about being in a completely new environment. I have never been to Texas before, and I think part of my nerves comes from not fully knowing what the work or community interactions will feel like in practice. I know things will not always go perfectly, and that is something I am preparing myself for.
More than anything, I believe that this experience will shape me. I want to become better at listening without making assumptions, adapting to different situations, and engaging with communities respectfully and meaningfully. I also want to build more confidence in myself as someone entering the field of Public Health professionally.
Overall, I am hoping this experience helps me grow not just academically, but personally, and gives me a clearer sense of how I want to show up in Public Health work moving forward!
