Epidemiology Personal Statement

It wasn’t until the final years of my undergrad that I realised that I wanted to pursue a career in public health. While I was growing up, members of my family have had run-ins with all kinds of diseases from major ones such as cancer and diabetes all the way down to the common influenza. Fast forward to my final two years of university at Trent when I realised I wanted to pursue a career in public health/epidemiology. I feel that it took so long to realise where I want my career to go was due to the amount of mandatory classes one need for their degree, and of these credits most of them were in subjects I did not enjoy or think were really relative to what I wanted to learn. During my fourth year of study I was able to take courses that really

This lead me to take courses such as Pathophysiology of Disease, Virology, Animal Physiology, Biomedical Ethics to name a few. In my final year I began to volunteer for a biotechnology company, Noblegen, and completed a reading course on the models used in epidemiology. This reading course gave me a first glance at the epidemiological findings and uses of the field. Additionally, the course gave me a chance to explore countless amounts of papers on epidemiological models, everything from deterministic to stochastic and everything in between. The history of the models used within the field, and discover what a necessity sharing public health information is to a country, even the world. Meanwhile, working in the lab taught me the responsibility of a biological work environment, while harnessing skills that enlightened my ability to work responsibly within a group or

As you can see from my transcript, my academic average is not the greatest average for applying for graduate studies. However, in the final two and a half years I got a general idea as to what I wanted to go into, thanks to the classes I took, and decided to attempt to try and change not only my life but my academic standing as well. I can safely say that looking at the first two and a half years of school I was lazy, unproductive and school was not of an interest. However, once I figured out what I wanted to do I was able to turn it around. I became active with inter-school sports teams, acquired a part-time job within the university at the gym, started doing better in my classes, and, again, began volunteering in my final year. Participating in these programs and volunteering allowed me to hone my leadership skills I have developed as well as continually develop a want to do more with my career.
I believe I am ready to pursue graduate work. I feel that the Masters program of Public health/Epidemiology at [insert school here] would allow me to pursue my dreams, and interests to their fullest. I feel that the schools program would allow me to further develop my skills while focusing on the infectious and zoonotic disease control and public health