“I always wanted to be in a career where I felt like I was genuinely helping others. After my sophomore year, I realized that I wanted to be involved in the healthcare sphere but I didn’t necessarily want to practice medicine. I switched my major to public health, picked up a minor in business administration, and learned about the seemingly hundreds of career paths outside of medicine that I had never considered before. Eventually I hope to combine my background in public health with a law degree and work in healthcare administration.”
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Undergraduate Public Health Student Spotlights
Rooted in Resilience, Building a Path to Health Equity
“I want to use my education to help humanize healthcare and advocate for communities that are often overlooked or underserved. As a first-generation Latino student, my journey has been guided by my family’s strength, my community’s resilience, and a deep desire to create change. I realized that Bloustein wasn’t just a school—it was a community full of students and faculty who cared deeply about making real, lasting change. My goal is to become a healthcare consultant, working with hospitals and health systems to improve operations, increase access, and ensure quality care for all—especially for underrepresented communities.”
Advocacy and Action Through Public Health
“There is so much you can do with Public Health. The major opens so many doors to different opportunities to find out what you are passionate about. I realized how overall health and wellbeing connects so many aspects of the world around us that we often overlook. I wanted to understand the environment through a health lens, and how its effects differ across communities. Learning how global and local access to healthcare is inconsistent across certain communities showed me the importance of advocacy and action through a public health lens.”
Family Health Struggles Inspires a Passion to Make Positive Change
“What interests me about public service and social justice is the work being done to make the world a better place. With its diverse student population and collaborative opportunities with outside organizations, I knew Rutgers and the Bloustein School was the right environment for me to grow academically and achieve my goals. I wanted to find a way to serve communities through public service and social justice, to restore hope in areas that need it.”
Combining Natural Science and Public Health
“What interests me about public service and social justice is the work being done to make the world a better place. With its diverse student population and collaborative opportunities with outside organizations, I knew Rutgers and the Bloustein School was the right environment for me to grow academically and achieve my goals. I wanted to find a way to serve communities through public service and social justice, to restore hope in areas that need it.”
Choosing the Bloustein School Opens New Perspectives in Public Health
“What interests me about public service and social justice is the work being done to make the world a better place. With its diverse student population and collaborative opportunities with outside organizations, I knew Rutgers and the Bloustein School was the right environment for me to grow academically and achieve my goals. I wanted to find a way to serve communities through public service and social justice, to restore hope in areas that need it.”
From Curiosity to Compassion: A Journey into Public Health and Medicine
Jay Kavia was always interested in science. Knowing he wanted to explore a career in medicine, he volunteered at his local hospital during high school. He began researching majors that would help him in his prospective medical career, including cell biology and neuroscience, biology, genetics, and public health. What set him on the path of public health was the pandemic.
Public Health major Lara Fougnies is 2023 Chancellor-Provost Student Leadership Award recipient
With a passion for improving community health outcomes, Lara Fougnies believes that public health strategies are the most effective way to confront the root of health issues in the country. Graduating with honors with a major in Public Health from the Bloustein...
Turning A Passion Into a Career: From Pre-Med to Public Health
Through her public health classes, Aliyah has learned about disparities in public health, influences on policy, and how to turn her passions into a career.
Public health: Learning something new every day to make a global impact
As a child, Fatma was visiting her home country of Senegal and fell ill. While waiting to be seen at a local clinic, she saw many women and young children waiting for hours to see a doctor. She knew at that moment that she wanted to impact people’s lives.