Student SPHere 2008-09

This week something amazing happened to me. Until this week I never knew I had an advisor. You may laugh about it and you are right to do it, because it was funny for myself also. To complete my application for the MPH in Child and Maternal Health, I need my grades. When I went to the onestop website to get an unofficial list of my grades, I saw the name of my advisor. I was so surprised that I went to see my program coordinator to get more clarification. What I want to say here is how good the staff is at the School of Public Health. For a year I was going to my program coordinator and she never said, “I am not your advisor, go to your advisor.� Can you see how lucky we are at University of Minnesota? I also remember Dr. Wholey, my management teacher last semester, helping me to install a program on my laptop so I could do my homework. He is not a computer technician, but he was willing to take his time to help me to achieve academically. This week I will meet my advisor for the first time and I am a little worried. What she is going to think about this student who didn’t look for her advisor for a year? I didn’t mean to ignore her or her advice; I just didn’t know I had an academic advisor. If anyone needs advice at school, it is I.

I work full-time and this semester I am taking 5 credits. Last semester I took 9 credits and worked full-time. I work as an RN at Fairview Medical Center. So I am always in the shuttle bus between the two campuses. I also like to walk, so I just cross the Washington Bridge once in a while to go to work after class. I try to balance work and school and it is not easy sometimes, believe me.

I love studying and in my family my father used to tell us girls, “Your first husband is your diploma. Your husband can divorce you, but your diploma will never leave you.� He also told us that in life there are three big things: the power, the knowledge and the riches. In French it is “l’avoir, le pouvoir et le savoir�. You can lose power and riches, but you die with the knowledge. I grew up with those ideas and I never tire of getting knowledge.

I am learning so much at the School of Public Health why did I wait so long get here? One of the most significant things I learned this week was from the ½ hour lecture in my Global Reproductive course about stigmatization. I realized how much we could hurt people without knowing it. This will reinforce my empathy toward people who are different from me.