health education competencies

Student Name 1

HED 250 Final Exam

Self-Assessment

When doing a self-assessment, I identified several strengths and weaknesses

among the health education competencies. The strengths I identified included

evaluation and research, ethics and professionalism, and assessing the needs and

capacity of communities. I believe I am weaker in areas like planning,

communication, leadership, and management.

I identified evaluation and research as a strength because I have a strong

passion for science and data analysis. I enjoy conducting experiments and gathering

data, and I do well when it comes to evaluating the results. I also tend to approach

problems analytically and I often break things down into statistics and numbers. I

think this is an important skill to have in regard to public health education because

evaluation and research lays the groundwork of what we already know, and what

additional information we need to strive for to more effectively implement programs.

I am also strong in the area of ethics and professionalism. In academic and

professional settings, I do my best not to let personal feelings interfere with the task

at hand. I understand that there are always things that need to be done, and they

need to be done efficiently with a certain set of standards kept in mind. I also always

try to foster a healthy work environment with coworkers, customers, patients, clients,

or whoever I might be interacting with at school or at a job. My attitude of doing work

to the best of my ability for everybody involved helps me come off as professional

and ethical.

Student Name 2

The final strength I identified among the health education competencies was

assessing the needs and capacity of communities. I think this strength ties in

partially with my love for data and statistics, but also with my interest in sociology

and psychology. When it comes to identifying what a community needs, it is

important to go beyond numbers and to understand what factors lead to it needing

certain things and not others. It is also important to understand the capacities of the

community since reception to programs will not be the same in every community. By

combining statistics with the specific interests and needs of different communities, it

is possible to get a strong grasp on what a community needs and why it needs it.

The weaknesses I identified; planning, communication, leadership, and

management; are all intertwined with each other. My biggest weakness,

communication, is mostly what drives the other weaknesses that I identified. I

struggle to effectively communicate with people verbally, and because of that, I am

unable to lead, manage, and plan with others as effectively as I would like. I am

someone who prefers to get my work done on my own rather than as part of a team,

which I understand is something that will not get me very far in the public health

world. Preferring to get my work done on my own would make it difficult to plan any

programs since they take a lot of people and cooperation to implement. My lack of

communication skills also makes me an ineffective leader or manager, because I

don’t like telling people what to do and I am not always confident that I can make the

best choices for others.

Student Name 3

Career Exploration

When researching career options in the public health field, I could not help but to

be immediately drawn toward epidemiology. Epidemiology is a career that fits many

of the health education competency strengths that I identified. Evaluation and

research is at the core of epidemiology. The career involves creating experiments

and studies, analyzing data sets, and finding unique ways to show the data and

results to the world. Epidemiologists also play crucial roles in assessing needs and

capacity, since the data that they find can highlight certain factors that would

otherwise be invisible.

Not only does the field of epidemiology help me maximize my strengths, it also

minimizes my weaknesses. Epidemiologists do most of their work in the lab, in the

field, or in front of a computer screen. This is often solitary work that is done alone,

although sometimes I would be part of a research team or be expected to attend

conferences and speak at public health events. I feel that this work environment

would be a good balance for me. I would be able to work on projects and read data

by myself, while also still getting the chance to occasionally interact with

professionals in my field and grow my communication skills.

As a career, epidemiology is expected to grow significantly over the next ten

years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are a growing number of

public health issues that have come about in recent years, and more people than

ever are needed to help find solutions. Being a part of those solutions and being

able to combine my passion for science with my passion for helping others would

mean a lot to me. While I do believe that there are many careers within the massive

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world of public health that I would enjoy, I don’t have much doubt that epidemiology

is at the top of that list.

Student Name 5

Career Development Plan

To become an epidemiologist, I need a detailed and comprehensive career plan

outlining how I will get there, and how I can use what I know about my strengths and

weaknesses to do it in the best way possible. My strengths in research and

evaluation, as well as assessing needs and capacities are essential to my plan

because those things are at the heart of what an epidemiologist does. If I want to

succeed as an epidemiologist, I need to continue to hone those strengths during my

academic career. It is also extremely important to stay mindful of my primary

weakness, communication. Even though epidemiology can sometimes be a field

where there is little interaction with people, my remaining years in school are a

perfect time to turn that weakness into a strength. Effective communication could go

a long way toward me making a larger impact as an epidemiologist than I would

otherwise have.

To ensure that I have the credentials to become an epidemiologist, I plan to get

my bachelor’s degree in public health education and a master's degree in

epidemiology. During my undergraduate years, I’ll learn the core concepts of what

public health strives to accomplish and how public health professionals achieve

those goals efficiently and effectively. During this time, I will also work as an

emergency medical technician to get experience in the field of healthcare. This will

allow me to see from the front lines how public health issues can affect people in our

community. I will also attempt to find internships and research opportunities to further

develop my research and communication skills. Afterward, I will apply to programs to

get my master’s degree in epidemiology. While getting my master’s, I will learn more

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about how and why diseases travel and what epidemiologists do to help mitigate the

negative effects that disease has on communities. My time in graduate school will

give me the chance to improve my skills even more and become more confident in

my ability to lead and do good work. Once I have my master’s degree and secure a

job as an epidemiologist, I will be sure to emphasize adequate professional

development throughout my career. I could do this by ensuring that I stay up to date

on recent breakthroughs in the field of epidemiology, by attending conferences and

meetings with my colleagues, and by continuously striving to improve my skills when

it comes to researching and interpreting results.

Student Name 7

Reflection

Throughout the self-assessment process, I learned how to balance my strengths

and weaknesses to find a career that fits me and my passions within public health.

My strengths in evaluation and research and assessing needs and capacity make

epidemiology a very intriguing field for me, and I think I would feel adequately

fulfilled and challenged if I went down that path. The self-assessment process has

also made me more aware of my weaknesses in communication and leadership. I

understand that it is important for me to address those weaknesses if I want to be

the best professional possible. My remaining years in school are a perfect

opportunity to improve on those skills and become more comfortable with them.

The discovery of epidemiology as a serious career option has been another

beneficial result of this process. It is important to me that what I choose for my

career is more than just a job. It has to align with my passions and goals.

Epidemiology checks most; if not all of the boxes. I’ve always wanted do work in a

field that deals with math and science, and they happen to make up the bulk of an

epidemiologist’s work. I’ve also always wanted to make a positive impact on the

world with whatever I do. Epidemiologists are essential to the development and

implementation of public health programs that make impacts on communities on an

observable scale. Their impact can go far beyond local communities as well. During

the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists were the ones gathering

and interpreting the latest data. That data was the foundation for the measures that

were put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19, saving lives across the globe.

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Being able to make that big of an impact while fulfilling my own personal interests

would be exactly what I’m looking for in a career.

To follow that career path, I need to get my bachelor’s degree in public health

education and my master’s degree in epidemiology. However, I know I will need

more than just degrees if I want to be a successful epidemiologist. I need

experiences that help me improve my health education competencies, primarily my

communication skills. By working as an emergency medical technician and seeking

out as many internships and research opportunities as possible, I will be put into

situations where I am forced to grow my communication skills. These experiences

will also allow me to meet new people, which will make it easier to network and learn

from the personal experiences of my peers. Once I reach my goal of becoming an

epidemiologist, I will make sure to continue to educate myself and stay up to date

with recent developments in the field. I believe that learning should not stop after

school, so I want a job that is always changing and forcing me to adapt.

Overall, this self-assessment experience has been as rewarding as it has been

humbling. Doing a deep dive into what I’m good at and what I can work on has

helped me plan for the future in a way that considers how I work best. It has helped

me learn how to tailor plans towards my strengths while also giving me opportunities

to improve on my weaknesses. It’s not easy for anyone to dive in and completely

assess themselves because we are bound to find things that we aren’t good at, but it

is important to recognize those weaknesses if we ever want to improve as people

and get on the best track for ourselves.