Caught in Between

Hello all,

Apologies for my lengthy absence from the world of blogging. Hope you have all been having a wonderful summer!

My blog disappearance can be wholly blamed on my own failure to understand the commitment of a full-time job. The learning curve was steep, and a few weeks into my internship, I felt I had to duck out of blogging for the sake of my own sanity and those forced to spend time with me. (For those of you just joining, I spent the summer as a Summer Business Analyst with McKinsey, a global consulting firm). I’d had jobs before, on and off campus, but nothing quite prepared me for the round-the-clock emails, travel, and strict deadlines.

During ten weeks of work, though, I adjusted–things went from impossible, to stressful, to just challenging. I learned everything from logistics (how do I get a new charger/better coffee/more sleep) to basic business survival skills (e.g. Excel modeling–my personal hell), and was able to serve two exciting clients during my summer. I traveled to DC, Philly, Boston and LA, met some of the most crazy accomplished people I’ve ever seen, and generally got my first real look at the wide world of adulthood.

me on my first day of school..work wasn't quite like this

I finished up this past Friday and am still in shock, but thrilled to report that I was extended a full-time offer to return after I graduate.  I haven’t accepted my offer yet, but I’m feeling pretty good about it. I learned so much in ten weeks that the chance to return for a full two years slightly boggles my mind. I’m sure I will learn things I didn’t even know I didn’t know. The one thing tugging at my heart is the chance to return to Africa after graduation, perhaps with the Fulbright program. The jury’s out for now, but it would be an amazing opportunity, and a great excuse to return to this place.

beautiful cape town

In the meantime, though, I have the slightly unreal luxury of an application-free senior year. On the plus side, this means much more time to explore Baltimore, take interesting classes, catch up with friends, and generally enjoy myself. On the downside, this may mean that senioritis sets in…now.

I’ll blog more in the next few weeks about the non-job related things that happened this summer, but I thought it only fair to explain why exactly I had gone AWOL on you all.

Here’s to a wonderful August, hoping the heat finally breaks, and a very happy 19th birthday to my sister, Suzi!

LB

P.s. photo at top courtesy of the New York Times.

Hello All,

Hope you’re enjoying the beginnings of spring! Here in Baltimore, it’s rained nearly non-stop since Spring Break.

Things have been busy here–my sorority initiated our newest pledge class, Spring Fair and SOHOP took over the Homewood Campus, I travelled home briefly, turned in a series of projects and papers, and celebrated both “regular” and Greek Orthodox Easters.The past few weeks have been interesting in a number of other ways as well. As I get older I cant help but feel that every semester at Hopkins gives me a different perspective on the school and its students. Every semester, I appreciate this place more.

April has been a bit of a strange month for me, and I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate, and meaningful way to talk about it here.

About two weeks ago, my sorority received some terrible news. Katie, a lovely girl the year younger than me passed away after a long, brave battle with cancer. Inevitably, this has colored the past few weeks for me in ways that have been both incredibly difficult, and surprisingly wonderful. At every turn, I have been nothing but impressed by the support, kindness and strength of everyone at this school.

My “little” in Phi Mu was very close to Katie. Upon hearing the news, my group of friends rallied around her to an extent that continues to amaze me. People dropped everything to make sure she was okay. Meals were delivered, classes skipped to give her company, baking occurred in bulk. It was incredible. I heard from old friends, acquaintances, my boss, faculty advisors. People reached out to me and to my friends, to our sorority as a whole.

By chance and circumstance, this month I have gotten the opportunity to spend a lot of time off campus and in “non-college” settings. Meeting the parents and siblings of long-term friends, seeing my big chatter away in Greek to her neighbors, attending a Catholic mass with a friend and her boyfriend for Easter, seeing my lovely little dance her heart out–in each of these situations I saw someone I thought I knew so well in a very new context.

Time and time again, on this blog and and at the Open Houses, I have said that the thing that first drew me to Hopkins was its students. Three years later, this is still true, and after these past few weeks, it has never been more important. I have been endlessly impressed and surprised by those with whom I am privileged enough to go to school.

I worried when I first arrived at Hopkins that I wouldn’t find my friends, those people with whom I was meant to spend my college years. Coming from a very small, very close high school, I fretted on the move-in-day drive that I could miss them. What if? I asked. What if I never find my friends? What if they’re on campus but I just never meet them? My Dad, logical and wise as ever, reassured me that though the school was new, and to me it was big, I would eventually find my friends and my “home.”

my wonderful roommate

I have.

Anywhere else, these past few weeks would have been intolerable. The support I received from friends was incredible. More than that, though, this experience has clarified how much of a home Hopkins has become for me. Sitting with the entire chapter of my sorority, hearing stories and jokes about Katie, celebrating her life, seeing those same girls motivate to raise nearly $10,000 in a week for cancer research, boarding a bus together a few days later to travel to New York for Katie and her family, I was stunned by how much I felt a part of this community. Watching my little steal the show at her dance performance last night, seeing her smile and throw herself into each dance, incredibly happy for the first time in weeks, I was overwhelmed. This place, these people, have become my home these past three years.

My Phi Mu "family" at Greek Easter today

As terrible timing would have it, two days after  Katie’s death, SOHOP arrived on campus, and my life transformed into a 24-hour-a-day Hopkins job. Becca and I braced ourselves for the day. There were few things we wanted to do less than bounce around campus fielding questions, and I worried that I would be overwhelmed. I spoke to family after family, though, and tentatively tried to tell them what had been going on in all of our lives those past few days. I spoke about how incredible my friends had been, how proud of everyone’s strength I was, and how the community had rallied around all of us.

Katie was an incredible member of the Hopkins community; we celebrate her life and we will continue to miss her so much. For those of us who remain, though,  this community here, whatever it was that first drew us to Hopkins and continues to keep us so happy, has been a great comfort. For me, this was, and continues to be, the people. I love the people at Hopkins and I can’t thank everyone enough for these past few weeks.

-Lauren B.

Whoa……..is it really August 22nd??? Wasn’t it just May 16th, the start of summer and the end of exams? Sheesh time is just relentless. So much has happened this summer and I feel like I wasn’t awake for half of it…that’s how fast things have happened. I will do my best to spare you a long drawn out overly detailed entry about my summer so here we go!

I wrote about my internship in my last 2 entries, so I won’t go into all those details ( here: Working Day and Night and  We Are the World ).

But I will say that I will be forever grateful that I got to participate in the Summer Enrichment Program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Not only was everything paid for and a stipend given, I got to meet amazing students passionate about public health, network with prominent health policy individuals, put theory into practice, get w free Princeton Review GRE prep course, see how it felt to be away from home for the first time, learn a lot about myself, and make connections that will hopefully help me in the future.All of the projects I mentioned I was working on got finished (thank God) and I was given a wonderful send off, complete with pizza, Ben n Jerrys, and an opportunity to see half of Harold and Kumar 3 being filmed in downtown Detroit (I’m not a fan of those movies at all buttttt it was cool seeing filming occurring).

"Wall Street" for Harold and Kumar...guess it was supposed to be Christmas time

the lovely ladies with whom I worked this summer

I am still not sure what I want to do careerwise, but I do know that my experiences will serve me well in the coming months and years as I continue my journey to find what I like. =D I know more about giving presentations and the importance of being able to know what you’re talking about and supporting your information, and so much more. Even now, when I hear something about health policy, I pay more attention to it and even try to relate to it because of the internship. Yay!

This internship took up most of the summer but I did get to fit a nice NYC trip in…my fam is originally from Brooklyn, NY and my dad still lives there, so my sis and I went to visit him. I decided to be adventurous and see my first Broadway show…but I wasn’t willing to pay full price. I did some research (ie Google and talking to Bway veteran atendees) and ended up getting killer Orchestra seats for 40 bucks to “In the Heights.”

Ok..so maybe I wanted to see the show because my going on 6 years celeb crush, Corbin Bleu, was starring in it…fine. BUT in my defense it was an amazing show with an amazing score and he wasn’t even my fav character. I would definitely see it again because it was so modern…a story about Dominicans living in Washington Heights, trying to find a place for their culture while still trying to find themselves, a coming of age type thing I suppose. Predictable but hilarious (plus it won 4 Tonys).

set of "In the Heights" at the Rodgers

The best part is that I actually got to meet him! We chatted for a minute or 2 and then I asked for another pic…call me weird but hey imagine meeting your fav celeb…yea don’t judge me. =P I have pics and a signed PlayBill with his signature along with everyone else’s…so I can say my first NYC Broadway adventure was a total success. =D

signed PlayBill and yea...he signed my phone too LOL

We look good together!

Plus I got to see an old friend whom I haven’t seen in 7 months, and we romped around the city together too and caught up on things. PLUSPLUS I learned a lot about my family…I am half  Grenadian (island in the Caribbean) and I don’t know that side of my family too well. I got to see more culture and learn more about my dad’s side of the family…albeit I didn’t WANT to learn some things but it was a sign that I am growing up and with growing up comes knowing your family on a less superficial level.

So as of now, I have to do many things before school starts…order books (OOPS), prepare for leadership with my Christian fellowship, get my mindset right for school, get a commuting schedule  in place as it looks like I will be driving back and forth each day ( =(  ),  and job searching. So I will be busy until school starts, it seems. Can you feel it? school is in the air!

Until next time!

-Dominique

This past weekend my friends and I rented a car, filled it to the brim with stuff, and went on an adventure across the Southern coast of Africa, otherwise known as the Garden Route. It was an amazing road trip and we got the chance to stop by a number of really cool cities along the way, but it was definitely a “journey is the destination” kind of trip, involving lots of driving, and a few harrowing moments on the highway.

This is all one lane on SA’s N2 highway. Bold move.

It turns out that it’s common practice in South Africa to use the lane of oncoming traffic to pass people when they’re not going as fast as you’d like them to–which, in our ancient rented Kia, happened to be us a lot of the time. We managed to nail the etiquette of this process though, and by the end of this trip we were passing cars like a pro. We figured out that flashing your brights at someone makes them move over into the shoulder, and once you pass you should always put your hazard lights on for a few seconds to thank them. It sped up the journey, but made it feel a bit like a video game at times.

We stopped by Mossel Bay, Wilderness, Knysna, Jeffrey’s Bay and Plettenberg Bay along the way. We were lucky enough to have a three day weekend at UCT (thank you, national women’s day) so we headed out on Friday morning with barely any plans, except the vague idea of maybe making it all the way to Port Elizabeth. We hadn’t booked a single hostel, and our research consisted of a quippy “Coast to Coast” and a few other guide books

I took the first shift of driving, my friend Stewart narrated our journey from the passenger seat, and my fellow Hopkins pal Pearl was our official photographer in the backseat. Five hours later we were in Mossel Bay, searching for the hostel we had booked just minutes before. We stumbled out of our car at the beach, headed to dinner at a Cuban restaurant, and spent the night at a crazy old train-turned hostel. The next morning we headed off to Knysna, by way of Wilderness, a stop at the beach, and a detour through a coffee shop.

The amazing cheese shop. “Lekker” is Afrikaans for “nice.”

Sunday was rainy, and we took the long drive out to Jeffrey’s Bay, the beach known for the ubiquitous dorm room poster, “In Search of the Perfect Wave.” Along the way we stopped at another highlight of the trip, a cheese farm on the side of the road where we were served possibly the best lunch ever by a friendly woman who obliged our requests to take pictures and answered our many questions about the cheeses. We briefly considered bungee jumping–the world’s highest bungee is on the way to J’Bay–but decided to save it for a less rainy day. Jeffrey’s Bay was beautiful but insanely windy, and deserted.

Jeffrey’s Bay!

On the way home we stopped by Plettenberg Bay to break up the journey and get out of what had turned into a very nasty storm. Plettenberg Bay was one of the first places the Portuguese stopped at in South Africa, naming it “Baia Formosa.” It certainly lived up to it’s name, and it was a relaxing and lucky stop on the way home. After driving circles around Plett trying to find our hostel in the rainy night, we pulled a U-turn in the driveway of what turned out to be a cozy B&B we had picked up the brochure for earlier in the day, half-joking (we’d been staying in hostels for about $10 a night, certainly not real hotels). We ran inside, drenched, and begged for a room. A lovely woman led us to a room with heat, a hot shower, and comfy beds, where we proceeded to pass out for the next ten hours in preparation for the long drive back.

Pearl making a mad dash for the Indian Ocean.

As we finally got back to the city on Monday night I realized I’d been looking forward to getting “home” to Cape Town. We’ve all been here a month now, and this place really is starting to feel like home to me. Not that I don’t get the odd pangs of homesickness for my family, little NJ quirks, or things like American coffee, but I really do love South Africa. I’ve gotten to do so many amazing and strange things since I’ve been here, and this weekend just added to the list–driving on the “wrong” side of the road, stepping into the Indian Ocean, taking a real road trip, seeing ostriches. I’ll be heading up to Stellenbosch wine country this weekend, and we’ve all decided to take a trip to Botswana and Zambia for Spring Break in September! There’ll be more updates to come soon, hope everyone’s having a great end of summer!

-Lauren

Hope everyone’s having a great last month of summer!

One of the exciting things about internships is that you can put theory into practice…meaning that I’ve been experiencing a lot of what I learned in my Health Policy and Management class..yay!

So part of this internship involves weekly site visits to other interns’ places, so we can be exposed to the different types of entities at work in health policy reform. Two that really stuck out to me were our visits to a free primary care center, and to a hospice headquarters, both in Detroit.  I named this entry “Working Day and Night” because these types of entities are always working to ensure that areas of care that are often neglected–primary care and end of life care–have a presence among disparate populations. There are always unknown, behind the scenes organizations working day and night to try to address our broken healthcare system, and they deserve some major kudos for that.

Mercy Primary Care Center services the uninsured on the east side of Detroit–and it offers services that help eliminate disparities among the underserved population when it comes to healthcare. It offers primary care (i.e. check ups), transportation, diagnostic services, medications, health education, and mental health counseling.

Mercy Primary Care Center...sorry the picture is so small

For FREE. All for free. When they told us this, I was in awe. There are not many places like this…and if there were more safety net providers like this, then people without insurance could receive care they otherwise would not get.  I just found this amazing. They showed us a video of patients at Mercy, and they all concluded that without this clinic, they would not be getting primary care and medications…at all. The clinic doesn’t do specialty services, but they will work with specialists to provide the care patients need as best as they can.

Imagine not being able to go to the doctor when you were in pain or sick, because you know you won’t be able to afford the $150 visit. Imagine having a job where you made more than the federal poverty line, so not low enough to qualify for Medicaid, but you make not enough to purchase your own insurance. What do you do?

This is why places like Mercy Primary Care Center are so important. They provide that extra support for the uninsured that they would otherwise not get. The center is also cool because it focuses on primary care. That’s an area we struggle with in our healthcare system, because people don’t work with their primary care docs enough. They don’t follow up or come in for regular checkups or get help with coordinating specialty care for a certain issue. The patients here can come once, or continue coming here, and not have to pay anything. Amazing!!

Visual description of a safety net

The other site visit I mentioned was to Hospice of Michigan. I definitely left here with a greater understanding of what hospice is and why it is so important.

I didn’t really know what a hospice was until last year, and even then I thought it was just a place where people accepted that they were terminally ill and they just prepared to die.

Hospices aren’t well known in our culture because Americans want this unattainable imortality. Consequently, we’re more likely to try everything in the book to combat disease and to try to create a miracle. But the CEO of Hospice of Michigan believes that Americans should be more accepting of death if it looks like a patient is terminally ill. And that their last days should not be spent in hospitals getting cut open and poked and radiated and tested…rather, they should be at home with family, taking medications that try to decrease their pain as much as possible but otherwise, enjoying their final times with their families.

Many don’t like the idea of hospice because it looks like the patient is just “giving up.”  But others see hospice as a means of accepting reality and trying to make the best out of a patient’s last days. When a patient is in hospice, doctors, nurses and social workers come to the patient’s home to talk with them , comfort them and give them medications…so it’s not really a place where people GO to die, literally.

If hospices were used more, then the amount of money used to implement last ditch efforts in an attempt to save a terminally ill patient’s life would decrease…arguably, the patient would also be happier and more comfortable in their last days. It’s a touchy subject that many Americans are not comfortable with, because of the American “never give up”  ideal.

So yea….two examples of non-hospital healthcare settings that are always working day and night to ensure that good care is given to those who need and seek it. I hope this entry was news to you, and that you learned from it!

My next blog will be a farewell to my internship/musings about my summer type thing, so stay tuned!

-Dominique

Greetings from way across the pond…nearly 10,000 miles of flights away. After a week in London and a 12 hour overnight flight i am safely in Cape Town, and I love it!

It’s certainly very different. I’ve met some really great people so far and we’re all loving it but still can’t help but stop to think about how crazy this whole experience is. It’s easy to get used to this and think of it as any other study abroad experience until something happens to snap you out of it. Like going out to a bar and realizing a beer is $1.50 or hearing Xhosa (the “click language” on the bus) or seeing your RA’s break out into a singing clapping rendition of Shakira’s “this one for Africa”….circa 9 am in the morning. Other shocks included realizing that when I wake up here, my friends in America are still awake from the day before, trying to understand the complex social history of Cape Town, figuring out Africa is much bigger than I thought (Madagascar a five hour flight away?!) or seeing a huge AIDS awareness ad on the side of the house I’ll be living in for the next four months. I’ve found out that “Africa Time” is a concept I’ll need to adjust to, I’ve been shocked to learn what no indoor heating feels like (sleeping in fleece jackets and ski socks) and struggled to find gluten free foods.

I’ve been exasperated, thrilled, exhausted and overwhelmed in equal measure since I’ve gotten here but I can say already that I know I made the right decision to spend the next semester in Cape Town. South Africa is amazing, and such a different experience than anywhere else! I’m excited to travel, my bucket list of places and things to see is growing by the minute, and I can’t wait to start classes and see what the University of Cape Town is like. It’s so beautiful and Table Mountain is an insane backdrop to the whole city, I’m excited to start exploring.

I don’t have any pictures from Cape Town yet but here are a few from my week in London, where I had a last dose of “normal” before South Africa. It was great to spend time with my mom and catch up with old friends, and now that I’m here enjoying mid-winter weather, I’m glad a got an extra week of summer!

-Lauren

Seriously, we are. That’s kind of a public health major thing to say, but can you blame me? I am what I am. ;)

So why this title? Because I’m going to talk about my summer internship at the Greater Detroit Health Council (GDAHC), where the members fight for better quality of care for residents of Southeast Michigan. The council has about 12 members only, all women (yeah! lol. Well, women make up the vast majority of healthcare workers and administrators and policy makers in healthcare…and public health in general.) From its website:

“As a health care leader that is recognized regionally and nationally, GDAHC works with everyone who gets care, gives care and pays for care to lift the quality of overall care in the community.”

So this means doctors, drug companies, health plans, health educators, etc…anyone that has a part in healthcare is welcome to be a part of GDAHC. They work with these stakeholders to develop new programs, and they measure the success of health care entities like hospitals and doctors and doctors organizations to see how effective they really are. Once you identify effectiveness, programs to address any inequities or disparities are thought of and implemented. Wow that was a lot….lemme see if I can give some examples.

Description of the site

1.) MyCareCompare. This site was developed by GDAHC to measure the effectiveness of doctors’ measures on certain ailments, as well as the performance of hospitals in the southeast Michigan area. They are all scored with the same scale of course, on things like heart failure treatment, pneumonia treatment, and infection prevention…and much more. This is important because if a hospital sees it’s statistics publicly reported, it will do what it can to become better, and therefore look better. Now, it should do this because it’s the right thing to do, but that’s not how the world always works…so yea. And patients can compare the hospitals and choose one based on what it does best for their specific needs.

2.) SaveLivesSaveDollars. This initiative ended before I got here, but basically it was a huge effort with GDAHC and doctors, health systems, hospitals, etc to try to reduce costs of healthcare initiatives while increasing effectiveness. If you didn’t know, the US is horrible in the area of efficiency. Because there is so much technology and so much to try out to try to help patients, sometimes doctors just do everything they can pull out of their hats, partly because they don’t want patients to accuse them of not trying everything they can, even if a treatment has a very small chance of helping. So SaveLivesSaveDollars was created to try to get these healthcare entities in southeast Michigan to abide by evidence-based clinical guidelines for treatment rather than a “let’s just try everything in the book and see if something helps” aka overuse, misuse, and waste of treatment.

3.) Community Health. Now, this is the section of GDAHC that I’m helping out with, primarily. Specifically, I have to help come up with a plan that would help the hospitals and doctors offices in southeast Michigan collect racial, ethnic and language data from their patients. Why is this important? Is it discriminatory? Nah. So basically, collecting this REL data (as we like to call it) is important, because hospitals and doc’s offices can look at the data according to race and see patterns like…maybe Latino men aren’t getting as many referrals to oncologists for prostate cancer as white men are. Black women aren’t getting screened for breast cancer as regularly as Asian women are. and etc. REL data will allow these places to see if they have any disparities within their departments, and then they can create a plan to address any disparities. A plan is needed to help train healthcare professionals in collecting these data because for many, discussing race, ethnicity and language is sensitive, and raises questions like…will this info be used to treat me worse…will someone use it to see if I am an illegal immigrant…will it be used to racially or economically profile me…etc. So yea, cool stuff.

In addition to that, I’m helping to update a brochure for the uninsured in Southeast Michigan..some of the clinics and services listed in the current one are old and outdated, and it’s awful if a person desperate for care calls a number but can’t reach anyone. That helps no one in the end and the person still has no access to care in their area…so yea, updated info is important.

I’m helping to also create a “snapshot” of the health stats in Southeast Michigan, so people can have a quick read about some of the disparities in the area.

And I’m helping with some data entry for GDAHC’s diabetes in the workplace project. Basically, this committee offered many employers in the area a training for diabetic employees, so that they would learn more about how to take care of their disease (you’d be surprised at the number of people with diabetes who have little to no clue on how to take care of themselves!!!!!!!1) Then after the training, surveys are to be completed by these employees about how the training helped them and how often they are implementing what they learned. I’m helping to enter the info from the surveys so that they can be scored, which will give some statistical data on whether the trainings are helping the employees.

So yea. I am quite busy here at GDAHC, but enjoying it so much. I have a meeting in the morning with the President and CEO of GDAHC tomorrow morning about improving race relations in Detroit…should be interesting!

Um let’s see, other things I do in this internship? Well, each Friday, we have site visits to other student’s internship placements, so we go there and learn about what that site is doing to address healthcare disparities. Last week we visited the Detroit Health Department and saw how much they really do for and offer to the under/uninsured community, and how much they have to deal with politics. The week before, we visited a community health center in Detroit that also gave services to under/uninsured people, mainly Blacks and Latinos. This week, we are visiting a primary care center (primary care is ultra important!!), and then helping to clean up the aforementioned community health center as our community service project for the summer.

SEE YA!!

HOWDY!!

I hope you all are enjoying your summers. I think for this entry, I will write a little bit about mine.  About the city I am currently living in…Ann Arbor.

So if you didn’t know, I was blessed enough to land a nice internship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, in the Health Management and Policy Department. I’m with 22 other interns, living in Ann Arbor but commuting to Detroit.

So how is Ann Arbor compared to Baltimore? I’d say completelyyyy different. I don’t even know where to begin. We’re staying in some of the dorms here, and it’s been pretty cool to share a space with 22 people I’ve never known before. The only downside is that the dorms have no AC and believe it or not, Michigan is just as hot as Bmore in the summer, maybe 5-10 degrees cooler but that’s about it. So I’m sweating in front of a fan as I write this, but what can you do. If anything, I will always appreciate AC from now on!

Me and my roommate's names on the door of our room

Ann Arbor is full of trees. LOTS AND LOTS of trees and I love it. I mean we have trees in Baltimore duh, but this place is so green, and just seems like a really nice community. The University of Michigan is HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, so huge, so the immediate area around campus is completely affected by the school.  It’s a real college town and there is a lot of U of M “GO BLUE!” Pride.

I couldn't believe this when I saw it...talk about school pride! ;)

Yesterday, my roommate and I tried to find the Ann Arbor parade, but failed, so instead we spent 3 hours walking around the area and we still didn’t even reach half of the campus and the grad schools. Everything here is close, unlike JHU where the undergrad is in Charles Village, and other grad schools are downtown (with the exception of the School of Education and the Business School…they’re closer). But with U of M, we walked to the school of law, dentistry, public health, business, med…it’s kind of nice. I won’t lie, one thing I always wish JHU had more of is sports school spirit, but U of M has 100 times more students (ok, exaggeration) and way bigger sports, plus it’s a public university, so yea. It’s nice to see everyone wearing “Go Blue!” apparel and having so much pride in their school. JHU has pride, but since it’s so independent, I think we show it in our own way.

Anyways, yea. huge school. Here are some pics of the buildings…I am not sure which is which but they’re still pretty impressive…this school is beautiful.

The internship gives us cars and gas to romp around Ann Arbor with, so that has enabled us to go out a lot and see the area. It’s not a city like Chicago or NYC or Baltimore, but it has it’s own charm. I really am appreciating my time here and being able to compare it to my home in Baltimore. I feel very at home here and considering this is my first time being anywhere in the midwest, much less away from home…and that’s a good sign! Go Blue!

I shouldn’t be up because I have to be at work at 8:30 am tomorrow. But tomorrow will be cool because we’re surprising one of the interns with lunch tomorrow for his birthday. I’m also excited because there is an art fest and mini carnival coming to Ann Arbor this week, and apparently lots of store sales…so I will probably be posting  alot more frequently, so more to come!

-Dominique

Well I won’t be going to Moscow, but I will be a stranger somewhere this summer…Ann Arbor, Michigan. Don’t laugh at me, but this will be my first time on an airplane (well, I was on one when I was a wee babe but that doesn’t count) and my first time off the east coast. Better late than never, right?

I applied for a Health Management and Policy internship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health….here’s the site: http://www.sph.umich.edu/sep/ It’s a pretty cool internship…8 weeks with a mentor at a specific healthcare site, a nice stipend, paid university housing, food allowance, free GRE prep course and practice exams, and a chance to decide if this field of public health is for me, along with the new friends and professional/grad school connections I will make. I’m not quite sure what I want to do with my life and I’ve never considered Health Policy, but it’s best to actually try things before you shut them out.

It’s more structured than any other internship I’ve even encountered, but it does so much for its participants. The director of the program has had this program since 1986! And it aims at getting students to discover the minority health disparity problem and be a part of the solution. I’m in good company too, as there are students from Harvard, NYU, Cornell, Columbia, Emory, Duke, Michigan, and others.

I am placed at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, but I’m not sure what my project is yet. I do know I will have to dress professionally each day, attend meetings with business men and women and CEOs, be able to be independent yet correspond regularly with my mentor, and not be afraid to be as involved as I can be.

The only downside (and it’s not really a downside) is that this summer ALL of my high school and JHU friends will be in Baltimore this summer…I can’t help but be a tad bit sad over the fact they’ll all be here with each other with me absent, but I’ll be able to come back to them when the internship is over and by then, I will have made 19 new friends (well, hopefully :P ) and professional and mentor relationships.

But more to come later in the summer about this internship….so ta ta for now!

-Dominique

Last time I wrote, I was crossing my fingers about study abroad, for two reasons. I submitted my application just in the nick of time, postmarking on the day it was due from Colorado where I was vacationing (though I didn’t publicize that one to the people reading my application). Secondly, I have never met two people less enthusiastic about me studying abroad in Africa than my parents….

As best as I recall, they’ve never ever forbid me from doing something (within reason), so I was a bit thrown off when they expressed their serious reservations about South Africa. They were worried about the safety in the city, the distance from home, and whether or not I would be comfortable in a city that restricts your personal freedom out of necessity.

I’m a fairly independent person even at school, and my parents worried that I would be frustrated by not being able to go running by myself, for instance. Their concerns seemed to outweigh any good things about the city, and I was genuinely concerned I wouldn’t be able to go.

In the end everything worked out alright though, and Dr. Citti at the Office of Study Abroad spent some time chatting to my mother on the phone, reassuring her that the city was safe, I would be okay, the program was amazing etc. etc. I’m not sure what she said to her but it must have been something great, because my parents agreed to let me go to Cape Town just in time for me to receive my acceptance!

My sister is a high school senior now and I had such a flashback to that college decision time as I sat in Social Psychology last week with my roommate Laura, and the email popped up on the screen, “CIEE FA 10 Cape Town AS Program, Acceptance Email.” Laura and I caused a mess in class as we tried to celebrate really quietly while at least pretending to take notes. My parents sounded as enthusiastic as they could be when I called them later, and I’ve been giddy all week about it.

As I was applying, I decided that if I didn’t get into Cape Town, I didn’t want to go abroad, so it’s only just now becoming clear to me that I really won’t be at Hopkins this fall. Because the University of Cape Town is in the Southern Hemisphere, my semester will begin in mid-July and end in mid-November, just in time for me to be back in the States for Thanksgiving.

As excited as I am to finally go to South Africa, I know I’ll miss my friends and Hopkins itself so much while I’m gone. I won’t be able to see too many people from here while I’m gone, as shockingly Cape Town isn’t the #1 destination, but I am going with my friend Pearl, and Laura will be in Durban for an Engineers without Borders project in August, so it won’t be entirely Hopkins-free.

I’m so, so excited to go, and I can’t wait to see what it’s like. I’m sure it’ll be a bit of a culture shock but I cant wait to see what it’s like to go to school in another country, on another continent for a semester. I’ll be sure to update you all once I’m there on what it’s like, I can’t wait!

Until next time,

Lauren

P.S. This is the program I’m doing http://www.ciee.org/study/programOverview.aspx?pID=134#1rightForYou