This is the story of one student's path to graduate school, from the initial curiosity about the subject through the application process.

For me, pursuing a graduate degree in public health was not an immediate or clear-cut choice. I originally had my heart set on becoming a doctor, specifically an OB/GYN, and I spent much of college working towards that goal. I loved the idea of working directly with patients and helping others, and health and wellness had always fascinated me. Medicine seemed like a great fit.

As I became immersed in pre-med coursework, however, I noticed that my classmates were fascinated by very different issues than those that appealed to me. While they enjoyed learning about biological details — the intricacies of the HIV virus structure, the chemical processes involved in breathing, and the cellular development of a fetus — I wondered about the larger issues that affected people's health. I wanted to know about the social factors that placed certain people at risk for HIV, the environmental conditions that made it more difficult for kids in urban areas to breathe, and the best ways to educate expectant mothers about the nutrients they needed. While most of my coursework was grounded in the hard sciences, my interests strayed much more into the social sciences.

Luckily, during my senior year, I was able to self-design an area of concentration for my human biology major, allowing me to explore my "fuzzier" interests. Because I had gained a strong background in reproductive health, I decided to focus my studies on international women's health and policy. Through classes in health and human rights, health policy, medical ethics, and feminist studies, I finally got the chance to blend my interests in science and in society. My new courses involved intensive reading and writing, which I enjoyed immensely more than the problem sets and laboratory work I had been doing previously. I also found that this new work came more naturally to me, and that I was performing much better in these classes than I had during my dismal days in general chemistry.

During this time, I also decided to write an honors thesis. I focused my work on the ethics of egg donation on college campuses, an issue that fascinated me because of the interplay between society and biology. I wanted to know how much students knew about the risks involved in egg donation, what doctors were doing to protect young donors, and how the medical industry could best ensure that both donors and recipients were fully aware of the physical and ethical implications of the procedure. My work addressed the larger issues of the reproductive health industry — a theme that emerges often within the public health field.

By graduation, I was fairly convinced that public health was a better fit for my interests and talents than medicine was, but I wanted to be sure. I decided to spend some time working abroad at a maternity hospital, where I could observe direct medical work and also learn about the cultural and societal factors that influenced women's health. I applied to a program called Child Family Health International and was accepted to complete a month-long internship rotation at a public hospital in Quito, Ecuador.

While in Quito, I observed during deliveries, took medical histories for new patients, and traveled to community clinics. Once again, I found myself wondering about the larger issues that were affecting health, such as economic disparities, access to clean water and healthy food, and gender roles. I realized that the day-to-day work I envisioned for myself would deal with these larger issues. Though I admired the physicians I observed for their ability to combat disease one individual at a time, I dreamed much more about reorganizing the whole community to alleviate some of these larger problems, about starting a foundation, and about writing and teaching about health issues.

Upon my return to the United States, I took a job at a non-profit that focused on population issues and education, and I also started to investigate graduate schools in public health. I was grateful for the real-world experience I had gained in Ecuador and during clinical volunteer work in college, because many of the public health schools that I looked at either recommended or required professional work experience. As I began to prepare my applications, I also re-established contact with two professors from college and asked them to write recommendations. One professor had been my thesis advisor and therefore had a good sense of my research abilities. Another had taught a small seminar on health issues and had known me well on a personal level. I thought that each one could speak to a different aspect of my personality. Finally, I asked my boss at the non-profit to write a professional reference.

At the same time, I started to work on my personal statement, pulling together my health experiences from academia, internships, and travel into some kind of cohesive message. With only 500 words, it was difficult to sum up my thoughts about public health, and I went through quite a few drafts. The final version of my essay discussed the contrast between my research at Stanford — focused on the high-technology health issue of reproductive technology — and the very "low-tech" experience of working in Ecuador, where clean water and basic preventive care were a luxury for many. In exploring this disparity, I pointed out that my interests in both cases focused on the larger societal issues affecting health. I then described my future career goals and ended by emphasizing the ways in which a degree in public health could help me reach them.

After mailing out several applications, I was fortunate enough to be accepted into my top-choice program, and I will start studying in the fall. I will be pursuing a master's degree in Society, Human Development, and Health, and I may continue to pursue a Ph.D. if I decide that I want to establish a career in academia. Regardless of what happens down the line, I am confident that specialized knowledge about society and health will lead me closer to my long-term goal of helping others get healthy — even without going to medical school.