Real World Learning

SPH field experience helps students hit the ground running

Omar Fernandes worked with an international organization that joins with local groups to protect human rights and deter violence.

In summer 2009, SPH students Amber Koskey (Environmental Health) and Tyler Weber (Maternal Child Health) headed to Mulobere, Uganda.

With the University of Minnesota chapter of Engineers Without Borders, they worked to improve access to safe water in this rural village.

The engineers implemented a groundwater supply and sanitation system, and Koskey and Weber conducted a community health assessment to guide future phases of the water project.

Families in the village walk an average of one to two miles each day to a water source, which is often a swamp or pond, and water collection keeps many children out of school. “We have all read about how people in areas of the world may spend eight hours a day retrieving water, but words don’t do justice,” says Weber.

The Global Field Experience

Koskey and Weber were doing what the formal SPH field experience was designed for—taking skills learned in the classroom and bringing them to real-world settings.

The formal field experience brings public health to life and helps students begin to identify themselves as public health professionals. SPH takes great pride in preparing our students to hit the ground running.

Because the field experience is intended to complement the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom, and provide an opportunity to apply those skills, the field experience is usually done after completion of at least half of a student’s coursework.

In 2009, SPH students like Koskey and Weber fanned out around the globe, as they do every summer.

Environmental health sciences student Eddie Kasner surveyed small-scale farmers in China’s Yunnan province to get an idea of their exposure to pesticides. He also worked with the Pesticide Eco-Alternatives Center (PEAC), whose mission is to reduce the use of harmful pesticides and promote alternative forms of pest control throughout China.

On the other side of the world, public health nutrition student Eunice Abiemo worked at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, reviewing national nutrition policies for high-burdened countries, including Thailand, Fiji, the Philippines, and her native Ghana.

The Domestic Field Experience

Some 100 SPH students opted to make a difference in their own countries or their own backyards. For example, Patricia Gannon is developing Web-based video training for nurses at 3M locations worldwide.

“It’s a global field experience done in Minnesota,” she says. Adam Hofer is analyzing proposed health care reform legislation at the University of California and working on projects related to health disparities in South-Central Los Angeles.

(To get a personal look at former global field experiences, watch videos of some 2008 students and their adventures.)

Many students take time to keep in touch as they go about their summers. Through e-mails and blogs on the SPH Web site, they share stories about global strife and domestic issues, and report on the state of public health in the developing world and at home.