By Dana and David Dornsife Dean Gina Lovasi, PhD, MPH

Earlier this week while sitting outside to enjoy my lunch, I had a chance to catch up with one of my amazing colleagues, Kelley Traister. I asked her for her thoughts about what was unique about our school and found we were in close alignment.

I was gathering my own thoughts about what to share as we welcome our students to a new academic year. On my paper was something I continue to strive for daily: learning by doing. I find this aspiration keeps me and my research team in a mindset of accepting feedback and surprises as informative, and away from brittle perfectionism.

But what I heard from my colleague was even better: co-learning. She highlighted that she has seen students get involved in projects that contribute to growing trust and meeting the information needs of communities. Everyone involved is contributing their expertise and also learning. Some efforts like this are nearby in Philadelphia, but also I take pride in noting that the work of the Dornsife School doesn’t stop there – our faculty, staff, and students are actively pursuing projects across U.S. and global settings, and are embedded in networks such as the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Urban Health Network for Latin American and the Caribbean. I think of this as demonstrating our commitment to Philly first, but not only.

While experiential learning is a key draw to Drexel, our students are already busy. If getting involved with project teams that make co-learning possible competes with other valued activities from social time to self-care, why is it worthwhile?

Finding meaning through contribution, developing skills through application

What makes it worth being part of a public health project team on top of course-related activities is that it fuses the intellectual challenge of learning with meaningful contribution so something larger than yourself.

Many of us are drawn to public health to elevate our ability to contribute. For myself, after getting laboratory and field biology work in college, public health was an opportunity to take careful and systematic approaches up to the population scale. A chance to tackle interesting puzzles, knowing that the answers could extend or improve lives.

As dean, I’ve had a new vantage point to be amazed by the range of impactful work that is going on at Dornsife. Across our centers, programs, and initiatives these include,

• rigorous methods applied to improve safety and health equity,
• trauma-informed interventions to address problems of hunger and violence, and
• partnerships formed to lead the way in institutional and global change.

For many of us, the limiting factor in what we can get involved with is not just how much time we have, but how much energy. Connecting what you are seeing in a lecture to voluntary or paid work on a specific project can refresh the sense that what you are doing and learning matters. Being able to point to the contributions made to a team effort, can pay off in fulfillment at the moment. Importantly this can also mean having experience and enthusiasm about your work that opens doors at the next career milestone, whether that is further education or a professional role.

Given this motivation, however, many students are unsure where to begin and how much to take on.

Clarify what you offer and what you need

On how much to take on, I loved the wisdom shared by my colleague Alex Ezeh earlier this week. The topic came up in our final summer seminar discussion with the Global Alliance for Training in Health Equity Research (GATHER). He said that if you say no too often, you risk becoming irrelevant. But each time you say yes, that is taking on an obligation, so there is also a cost to always saying yes.

So, the first consideration I would suggest is to set intentions that can guide you to the right yeses. If you imagine yourself at the end of the degree program, what do you want to ideally be poised to say about your accumulated experiences? It may be important to you that you get experiences to cover a wide range of public health topics, or to have cohesion due to a common theme that ties it all together. Perhaps you picture having a profile of written and online materials that you can share, a network you can call on for support, or familiarity with organizations you see as potential future workplaces.

Next, consider how much time you are looking to devote now. It is one of the first questions I ask when getting student inquiries – are you currently looking for a one-time conversation, ready to dive into 10 hours per week for the next 2 quarters, or perhaps something else?

Since existing teams often have deliverables and commitments to work toward, being flexible can help set you up for meaningful contribution. Consider your own prior experience and capabilities. I’ve met students who have prior experience in dentistry, communications, or hospitality, who at first do not see how those skills are transferable to public health. Yet attention to detail, clear writing, or active listening may turn out to be highly valued, and even more powerful as they are combined with a growing knowledge and familiarity with tools in your chosen discipline.

Finally, take an honest look at what you need, so that you can identify a good fit. I’ve learned about myself that I need to work on one thing at a time, to know that people around me will speak up early and constructively if they disagree, and to have a specified timeline and accountability for completion of each task. I have to watch out for feeling overwhelmed, getting defensive, and impatiently rushing ahead. I’ve also learned I appreciate having written instructions and checklists, but that others have a greater need to talk through the reasons behind each step and internalize the big picture goal. What about you? I think there are important insights to be gained through nonjudgemental self-observation and reflection, which then allows you to look out for and share with others what brings out your best.