Along with a big commitment to run a marathon in October, I have also recently made another (slightly more expensive & time consuming) commitment: to go to grad school.
In the Fall, I will be starting the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. AND I AM SO EXCITED!
To start at the beginning of this journey, it really has been a long time coming. Around two years ago, I contemplated a bunch of different options. I felt bored where I was working, and wanted to do more with my time/life. I was catching up with an old friend, Laura, from my middle school days back when we lived in Norfolk. We were emailing back and forth about life, jobs, her recent engagement, and I mentioned to her I was considering going to back to school for public health (I just went and looked at our email chain–it was February 2011). This being prompted by my then-recent diagnosis of Lupus and the start of my volunteering as a coach for Girls on the Run. At the time, she was the only person I had told about this secret research, and for a while that was all it was. I decided to put off school for a while, to give myself time to enjoy life without homework and exams, and to really figure out if that was the path I wanted to take.
Two years later, here we are. I applied to a few different MBA and MPH programs, initially with the intention of completing a dual degree. After acceptance letters were sent out, I had to decide what to actually commit to. After even more research, chats with current students, emails, campus visits, informational webinars, and an overall life assessment, I narrowed down my choices to, for all intents and purposes, two very equal public health schools. I had decided to go with a public health school, and specifically GW, rather than a smaller program or MBA for lots of reasons: reputation, interest in healthcare rather than business, cost, and location.
The main difference between these two school was location. I had considered going to a school far, far away from DC, but after a lot more thought about it, a visit to that campus, and pro/con lists, I decided to stick around DC and go to GW. I really love it here, and I’m just not done with it yet, like I know a lot of people are. And some of the best people I know are here–you know who you are! My next city is TBA.
So that’s that. I met with my advisor last night to talk about my course plan for the Fall. I’m prepping my life (aka my bank account) for the shift school will cause. I’m soaking up the free time I have now with the knowledge that come August 26, I will have a lot less of it. I’m so excited for this next step, and I can’t wait to see what will happen next. I’m sure I will let you all know how this goes…
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