Graduate / My heart started to beat faster as I felt the needle pierce my skin! [7]

Hi everyone! I'm currently working on my personal statement for graduate school. I'm applying to get my master in public health at some of the top schools, so its really important that my statement be flawless. I'm mostly applying to Health Policy or Behavioral/Social Health programs, but I tried to be as general as possible to accommodate for both. I just wanted to convey my initial reason for entering public health. My last paragraph doesn't quite have an ending because I'll be tailoring that according to each school I'm applying to. I also need to cut it down a lot as you can see, so if you find that there is something in here that you feel is irrelevant, please let me know. I take criticism pretty well so feel free to be brutally honest. Thanks!

My heart started to beat faster as I felt the needle pierce my skin. Despite the nurse's assurance that it would only take a second, I watched her draw a test tube full of blood, only to replace it with another to fill. At the age of seventeen I had been more concerned about my impending junior year of high school and I was taken aback my diagnosis of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Even after my doctor provided me with the basics, I wanted to learn as much as possible about this disease. As a relatively unheard of syndrome, I was motivated to investigate, and was eventually lead to forums filled with the experiences that other young women had with PCOS. After reading about PCOS as a women's health issue, I felt an internal sense of responsibility to others with similar afflictions, and decided I would become a physician to address this disparity. I began my college career like most pre-medical students, but I felt that the social and preventative issues I wanted to address in medicine were being over looked. I embarked on an exploration of other career options by taking various classes and found that public health provided me with the in-depth discussions and analysis on current issues in health care that I craved. My initial inquiry into my own diagnosis resulted in the discovery of a passion for public health and a yearning to ensure that underserved populations receive access to the services to which they are entitled.

Once I had channeled my interests and life goals into a career trajectory in public health, I felt that I needed to better understand the populations that I wanted to aid. I started out at Rutgers taking various classes in economics, philosophy, women's and gender studies, and even attempted to gain entry to the Rutgers Business School. Within an array of classes the one that made the most impact was an introductory course called Women, Culture, and Society. During our first class we did an exercise where individuals volunteered to disclose an aspect of themselves that no one could guess from their appearance. One student said she was bisexual, another said that he did not relate to his parents culture, and another said that he had been bullied for years for being gay, even though he was not. The confessions went on from students admitting how wealthy they are to the abuse they received as a child. From looking at each of these individuals you could not fathom their story before they revealed it, and yet every day they are judged and categorizes based on their appearance. However, I was not any different; I made assumptions about people all the time. This simple idea changed the way I viewed everything. I no longer viewed helpless individuals as a product of their own failure, but a result of how others have failed them. The perspective I have gained from women's and gender studies has been integral in my understanding of how societal categorizations such as gender, race, and class can lead to social inequality. This has been particularly insightful within my public health experiences in assessing the needs of specific populations and developing creative solutions accordingly.

As I took more Women's and Gender Studies courses, I started to genuinely understand people in a way that I had never comprehended before. Juxtaposed with my public health courses, I came to appreciate the ideals of social justice that the field perpetuated. I was eager to get out into the field and experience the work that was being done in my community. My first internship expressed this synthesis of interests as I interned for the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network (NJWAN) where I addressed the growing rate of women infected with HIV. After witnessing the empowerment NJWAN's programs instilled in women to embrace their own health, I wanted to contribute to their programming and decided to write my own session of a medication adherence program to address the research I had done on the intersection of diabetes and HIV. I had chosen diabetes because of what it meant to me personally with the direct connection it has to PCOS and because both of my parents had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. I again turned to research in effort to find a personal resolve while also aiding others in their journey to a healthy lifestyle. I thought of myself as a confused seventeen year old as I brainstormed creative ways for HIV positive individuals to learn about ideas that were completely foreign to them. I accomplished this by building interactive exercises and designing brochures and charts that contained illustrations and were easy to read and understand. My time at NJWAN was not only personally fulfilling but I also felt that I had made a lasting impact in the organization and their clients. NJWAN propelled my interest in public health from a personal interest to a passion for advocating for the health of underserved populations.

While my experience at NJWAN launched my passion for public health, the Robert Wood Johnson AIDS Program (RWJAP) solidified it. Every day at the RWJAP was a learning experience and there were always opportunities to learn more. My greatest accomplishment at the RWJAP was writing the vignettes for a pilot e-health program to prevent HIV and promote sexual health in youth. I created characters and stories about challenging situations to which teens and pre-teens could identify. We used each of these vignettes to simultaneously pinpoint risky behaviors and educate children on how to make informed decisions. The most satisfying experience of this internship was the holiday party that the department held for the pediatric HIV/AIDS patients. Most of the children here were incredibly young and did not know that they were HIV positive. Knowing that these children would struggle later in life made me want to work harder on the prevention of chronic diseases and increasing access to healthcare. These children were fortunate to have the RWJAP to care for them, but there are also individuals that go through life unaware of their HIV status. Much of the limited access to health resources is from a lack of knowledge of the resources that are available. The RWJAP gave me a broader view on public health, as the people in my community gave me an impression of the work that has yet to be done in underprivileged populations.

Upon graduating I was prepared to emerge myself into public health and start building a career. Even though I truly enjoyed working in HIV prevention, I wanted to broaden my experience but still maintain my goal of helping underserved populations. When I started working at the Greater New York Hospital Association, I finally felt my goals begin to actualize. It has been an incredible experience working on an online resource, Health Information Tools for Empowerment (HITE), to increase access to health and social services by centralizing information about programs and organizations within the New York City area. Our team at HITE recently hosted an event where representatives from government agencies, non-profits, and community based organizations attended to learn about the resources we have available. The executive director from a non-profit in Staten Island came to us after the presentation and enthusiastically thanked us repeatedly for informing him about HITE. Staten Island has always been referred to as the forgotten borough of New York City and this has also affected the social services that are available. He told us that he found organizations within walking distance that he had never heard of before, and now he could share the resource with his clients and even collaborate with them. Previously he had to refer his clients to services based in other boroughs, forcing low income individuals to spend time and money on transportation, but now that he had HITE he could find the closest resources in Staten Island and guarantee they get the services they need. Every time I add a new resource to HITE, it brings me gratification and contentment to know that the site will be used to grant someone access to the help they need.

This past summer I visited my physician for the same blood tests I had taken as a seventeen year old, and this time I was relieved when I received my blood report back and everything was normal. I have taken control of my own health through lifestyle changes and as a result reversed my initial diagnosis. I have personally experienced what it feels like to be uninformed about your own body, and have since addressed this disparity as a whole through understanding populations and teaching others about prevention. I believe that attending XXX...