So we had introductions and lectures from 9-5 every day this week. There are about 30 students starting this fall across the three concentrations: Masters of Public Health (general), Applied Epidemiology, and International Health. Six are part time students, and then there are apparently 13 part time students who are starting their second year that will join us in some classes starting next week.I am the only student from the US. Otherwise we have students from 12 different countries: Ghana, Uganda, Oman, Pakistan, Indonesia, Cameroon, Lebanon, Nigeria, the UK, Kuwait, and one other I'm missing. I have made friends with a couple people, in particular a girl named Sacha who is half French Canadian and half Pakistani. She most recently came from Pakistan, but she did her bachelors at the University of Georgia, so we were instant friends!
Most people already work in public health sectors such as running clinics for palliative care for children with HIV and cancer in Jakarta, or clinics in an urban slum in Pakistan, and several are doctors who have decided to change career paths. One man from Cameroon said he got frustrated as a doctor because he wanted to treat more than one patient at a time.
A lot of students have asked me why, as an American, I chose to come to the UK when we have such great universities, in particular 3 of my colleagues have asked me why I did not choose John Hopkins. Of cours, I have my reasons and I condense them into about three key points: 1. I'm studying international health, why would I do that in my own country?, 2. I've always wanted to live abroad, and John Hopkins is pretty near where I grew up, 3. Since the program is only a year, it's actually cheaper.
Challenge of the week:
Well there have been several...
1. Being from a developed and western country I sometimes feel hypocritical. Maybe this is a burden I am placing on myself, but we sit in class and talk about health issues and I go home and eat a candy bar. I am aware that every thing is in moderation, but I do feel a pang of guilt. We also discuss prominent health issues in our home countries... And while others are discussing basic vaccinations and recording of these things, or the prominence of malaria, or the availability of food, I am discussing the health effects of people with too much food and sedentary lifestyles. The dynamic of our classroom is vastly diverse and sincerely challenging for me.
2. Being foreign. I may be of European descent, and I may be a native English speaker, but I am not native to the UK and its obvious. You can see it in the way I dress and the way I speak - and not just my accent, it's my vocabulary, my body language, etc. And to some truth but also somewhat naively I think I'm pretty widely accepted. Most people I meet love America and think I'm fascinating. But on a few occasions I've gotten snide remarks. Two examples in particular are one of our postgraduate welcome events was at a bar where the music was so loud you could barely hear any one speaking. This guy was coming around introducing himself to people and he got to me. I told him my name and what course I was studying. I had to say it three times for him to hear me and I still don't think he actually understood me. He stopped me and said, "Are you Scottish?" I replied, "No, I'm American." His response was, "Oh that's even worse" and he walked away from me. That instance I chalked up to some drunk bloke. But last week I was in a small store buying school supplies. The paper in the UK is longer than paper in the US, and they only have 2 hole binders instead of 3. I'm not discriminating, it's just a fact it's different. I wanted to make sure that I was purchasing the right things so I went to the cashier and asked him if that was the normal length for every thing. He replied in a very snarky tone, "In this country." And at that point I realized that I'm not always equal here. My appearance (other than my clothes) may blend in, but I'm not native and many people will never accept me as such. But on that note I would like to say 98% of Brits are exceptionally nice, polite and welcoming.
3. I had a bit of a hiccup with my cell phone earlier this week. I got a text message from my provider about going over my plan and to call, and if I didn't call they would cut off my service. Well I was in presentations all day and by the time I was able to call they had blocked my service. Of course I was still able to call them in particular. I spent almost an hour trying to figure out the problem (most of it on hold). I figured it was that I had gone over my data allowance. I only get 500mb of data per month right now, which is 25% of what I had in the US. And wouldn't be such a huge deal if I had Internet in my apartment, and hadn't been away from the social media world for over 2 weeks prior to getting my phone. So anyway, turns out I did go over my data but more importantly I had been calling 08 phone numbers which are premium numbers here that cost anywhere from 30-80 pence per minute. No one had told me this and all I had been doing was calling my water, electric and Internet companies trying to get my bills sorted. Yeah... Well £12 later my cell provider cut off my service to ensure I wouldn't rack up my more charges. Luckily the man I spoke with was very nice and patient with me as I cursed on the phone about how no one had told me this and I'm clearly new to the UK and I wasn't blaming him but someone could have warned me when I got my phone service about these things because how else would I know?
Anyway, that's been my week in a nutshell. I have more to post about specific things but I also have things I need to get done and its a Sunday so every thing closes super early here so I'll have to get to the rest tomorrow.
