Student blogs

Hello everyone! I’ve been thinking it’s about time I introduced you to our lovely class in the Global Health Master, 2019-2020 cohort! So, who are we?

Nationality

As in any Global program, taught in English in a country where it’s not an official language, you’d expect us to come from many different places, right? Yes!

*Disclaimer: the unlabeled dark red and green between Brazil and the USA represent one student each, one from Australia and Argentina, respectively.

This chart shows the nationalities of everyone in our class. The numbers are a bit higher than the actual size of the class, but that is because many of us hold more than one citizenship and are nationals of different countries.

Background

Another very special thing about Global Health, in my opinion, is how much interdisciplinarity is truly valued. We have lectures given by doctors, nurses, anthropologists, sociologists, demographers, economists, statisticians, epidemiologists and so on and so forth. Of course, if you want to work in this area, it is mandatory to understand the importance of social and biological processes altogether.

As an Anthropologist, who has just began a Pharmacy-Biochemistry program, I get more strange looks than I can tell when I explain my professional choices. “But what does one have to do with another?”; “Are you lost?”; “What do you plan on doing with this??”; “Did you end up in the health field by accident?”. I would like to say that no (although I think everyone finds their own path based on trial and error), the health field has always appealed to me, and it seemed perfect to merge these two areas that excite me so much.

And I’ll tell you guys something: everytime (everytime!!) I go to a lecture hosted by someone who works at the WHO, they stress how much health response and policy need social scientists working alongside the biomedical crew, or the approaches towards the community will inevitably fail. So, being a social scientist/anthropologist who plans to also be a pharmacist/biochemist in a few years time, Global Health is an amazing field to work with all kinds of people, from different backgrounds and origins.

So, it couldn’t be different. While selecting our applications, I feel like there has been a true effort to mix professional and academic backgrounds, generations and nationality. And I have no doubt about how much this is valuable for our learning and discussions.

So here follows the backgrounds of my classmates and I. Here, there’s also a larger number comparing to the amount of students, but, as our field is interdisciplinary, so are our peers, who sometimes have done more than one academic/professional training, not to mention a variety of specializations and work that did not fit on the chart!

And last, but definitely not least, a picture to show you who we are, taken after one of our very first lectures! Lovely, right?

Also, I know that the applications period has just ended, and would like to wish the best of luck to everyone wishing to come to the Global Health Master’s! Should you need anything, please don’t forget to get in touch!