My Kat Life

If you asked me five years ago if I thought I would be going back to school, my answer would have been “possibly, for an MBA.” My mom had been pushing me to apply for MBA programs for a couple of years, but I kept telling her “no” because I didn’t think I was qualified to get into any programs, and I thought I was going to be able to navigate my career to a place where an MBA would be beneficial. I was wrong.

At the end of 2019, my career hit the rocks and I was completely lost as we headed into 2020. While the last year was nothing any of us expected, I am grateful that circumstances made me slow down and take a hard look at my life. Ever since graduating college, I had been feeling my way around, trying to figure out my career. In the process, I became a contractor to gain work experience and become a project manager. I’m so grateful for the opportunities and experiences I had at places like Facebook and for some of the amazing people I met along the way, but I realized I lost sight of the end goal. As I was trying to figure out the next step in my career, I began to question the substance of my work experience and (lack of) expertise I could bring to an employer.

At the beginning of 2020, I enrolled in courses at the University of California Santa Cruz Extension to pursue the Clinical Trials Design and Management certificate. As in-person learning shut down, they began to offer courses online in addition to discounts to encourage learning! I started to network and look for open positions as a Clinical Trial Coordinator or Associate, but I was disheartened (also not surprised) to see that positions I was interested in required prior experience in clinical settings or knowledge of concepts in courses I still had to take in the certificate. Paving a path in clinical trials was going to take a while, and this was when my mom prompted me to consider public health. The timing with the pandemic felt like a sign, but as I considered how I might be able to transition my experiences into public health, I also realized my own passions and interests aligned with public health policy work, namely in fighting food insecurity and in health care reform and cost containment. A career in public health would also enable me to have a greater purpose in my life, to do something for good and make a positive impact (hopefully) in my community and country.

As a foodie, I have a strong appreciation for food, and thanks to the privilege provided by my parents, I have never experienced food insecurity. I cannot relate to families that do not know where their next meal will come from, but it breaks my heart knowing that so many rely on free lunch programs at schools so their children can eat and/or food kitchens and food banks. It makes me that much more grateful for the food I have the privilege to eat as a food blogger, and this also why I choose to pay it forward with my time volunteering at food banks. I have one of my previous employers to thank for this – they had regional offices participate in global service days annually, and I started volunteering at a local food bank with my colleagues.

At the time, I was in a negative headspace, thinking that my efforts would be futile and I wouldn’t be accepted to any schools. I have no public health experience, and I wasn’t sure if admissions committees would believe my reasons for wanting to enter public health in my personal statements and essays. Reading and participating in student forums made me nervous and self-conscious as I was seeing how many current undergraduate students I was competing with. A number of students who took gap years also had some great work experience at their local health departments and NGOs. I was a mid-career professional whose recent roles were as a contractor and who didn’t really have an area of expertise.

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But then the craziest thing happened. I received my first acceptance in early February: Emory Rollins School of Public Health. After reading the email and looking at the decision in the student portal, I screamed. Then came an acceptance from UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health; I screamed again because this is the number 2 overall public health school in the nation and number 1 public school of public health. Did they confuse me with someone else?! The rest of the decisions trickled in over the next month and a half. I was completely shocked as I was considering myself lucky if I was able to make it into Boston University School of Public Health (ranked number 8 last year). I felt so lucky to be able to choose between seven great programs, two of which are among the top 5 programs in the US. There was a period earlier in the year when I was praying for a sign, for someone to tell me what I should be doing to get my life back on track. Perhaps this is it? I’ll take it as such. Now let’s hope I do well in my program!

During the last month, I think I flip flopped between programs every week. It was hard giving up programs in cities I was really interested in living in, but I had to consider cost of tuition, living, the overall program’s alignment with my interests, and career prospects.

I’m happy to say…

I’m off to Atlanta in the fall to pursue an MPH in health policy at Emory Rollins School of Public Health!!

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