Public Health

No.

Well, hello, everybody. As you start signing in, please know that we're going to wait about 2 minutes so that everybody can get connected and can get in. And so we're going to start at roughly about 102103 central time. And so thank you for joining us and we're really looking forward to talking with you today.

Well, welcome, everybody. My name's Aaron Betcher and I'm part of the admissions team here at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Before we get into the presentation today, I've got a couple of housekeeping items to go over so that you are all aware this webinar is being recorded and will be made available for viewing. So don't feel like you have to take frantic notes within your share screen. You will see that there is a closed caption.

Optioning.

It is the bar at the top right corner, and it's a little CC button right next to it. The option to make the video full screen is available if you would like that as well.

If you ever need to re sync your audio or video at any point, just refresh the browser and that should clear things up. Questions? We'd love to hear questions from you in the chat. Feel free to post those throughout. We are going to be looking at the questions at the end of the session so we will put those on pause until the late later point and then go through all of those. I know that there's a lot of people on here today which is wonderful.

And we're happy to have you. And with that, I want to introduce you to Doctor Chen from our public health program. Thank you so much for joining the University of Illinois Springfield today.

Hi, guys.

This is doctor Brian Chen from the Department of Public Health and a Master of Public Health program. So I'm very glad to see you are here today and I'm going to do some housekeeping thing as well, so.

You you will get today's information information online through a link here which is go.uis.edu.

NPH info. So basically this is going to be a cloud version of the presentation that actually provides quite a bit links of information, including alumni stories and what kind of jobs and a MPH hub web page AKA MPGH welcome web page so that those informations.

Will be extremely helpful as you explore the US MPH program here. So this is the housekeeping thing, and in fact I encourage you to.

Look, uh, actually to type this in.

Your computer now to see if you can actually see this. So if you can see in the chat and then you are welcome to actually open up that cloud presentation document and then move along directly move to the pages that you have the most interest, I don't care. So I'm going to take.

Around 20 minutes for today to just give a brief introduction to the program. And the most important job I'm here today is actually to connect with you guys. And then whenever you have the questions, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll respond and.

The other important things for you guys is that our program is actually hosting events for both existing students and prospective students. So we're going to have a.

Korea workshop coming, so I'll talk about that, but that's your sort of second chance. You have a second chance and the third chance to interact with me, with the current students and to talk a lot of a bunch of great things about public health. So let's get started.

All right.

So a little bit about me.

I have a PhD degree in health behavior from Indiana University School of Public Health in Bloomington, and my undergrad major was athletic training and health. So that's the fascinating thing about public health, because master of public Health Program welcomes everyone with different majors in college.

And oftentimes we combine what we have learned in college and then combined with the core competencies that you will learn in the MPH program and find your best way to find your jobs. So currently in our student pools, we had student whose college major.

Juries were nursing medical medicine and the pharmacy as well as dentistry. So we have a bunch of dentists, nurses, medical doctors as well as pharmacist in our program and then once they figure out what they want to do and they actually some of them started the job in public health program programmer, but some of them in fact.

I went to the dentist school and then started practice dentistry. So there are just so many possibilities that you you you can do after the completion of the MPH program. So let's move forward. So what is public health?

So public health has been a prominent subject in the discipline, especially after the COVID in 2020. You can see a lot of things that are connected with public health, the economics, the policies, public health policy and.

Everything else. Hospitals everywhere. So, but what is public health? Public health?

Is focused on preventing illness, promoting population health, and working on keeping society healthy through community services, health education, research and clinical care partnership, as well as advocation or advocates of public health policies that can make people's health better.

So what is what are you can be in this public health. Let's look up for some public health jobs. So, based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Public Health is in high demand. There are 2.4 million jobs available and it will increase 15% from 2019 to 2029. So you are entering.

The public health in the great timing, because now our program doesn't have the ghie and we even provide some of waiver and some great scholarship program. And by the end of the day after you graduate, there are plenty of jobs ahead waiting for you to apply.

You're great, doctor Chen. No worries. One question that I thought would be really good for everybody is is from Claire and she has. I did public administration in my undergrad studies. I did my national service with health service, which has spiked my interest in public health. I want to apply for the joint degree public administration and public health, but I don't have a background in health. Can I still apply? And and how do those students?

Doctor Chen.

Yeah. Thank you, Doctor Chen. The other question, I'll answer really quick, but then I'll turn it over to you real quick. Is, is how many admitted students get graduate public service internships for spring or fall every year just really quickly? That is a funding program. And I know Doctor Chen talked about a little bit that you actually worked for a governmental organization, so.

Uh, there's there's 80 to 100 different offices there. There's there's many times we'll have total graduate students, not just public health, but total graduate students in that 80 to 100 range per year. And that doesn't include all the other students who might have gotten a GPA or a graduate assistantship position with the university, meaning that you work on our campus instead of a governmental agency. And and just so everybody knows that might not be aware of Springfield is the state capital of Illinois. And so we've got a really close.

Relationship there which is is normally a great fit for public health students as they as they look at things. But Doctor Chen has there been you know a couple of common places or or a couple things that that you've seen with what we call graduate public service interns or what you mentioned as as GSI positions that you've seen success with public health students.

Hmm.

Awesome, and real quick, a question just came in. I can handle this. The graduate assistantships and the Gradual Public Service internship programs are open to international students as well as U.S. citizens. So all apply. It is a part if you haven't applied yet. Once you apply, you'll get.

An application status page link which shows you everything that's going on with your application after you applied. There will be a link that comes on there that says graduate public service, intern graduate assistantship application, or GSI G application. Click on that and fill that out. You do need to have 3 letters of recommendation. You are posting a resume, you're looking for a job, but they will start to work with you. This has nothing to do with admissions. This doesn't have anything to do with.

Mr. Chen and public health there's a separate office on campus that are graduate internship programs office that will work with you after you are admitted to the university. So that's when you will hear from them first. But great, great question.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm going to put that link to be able to register for that here in the chat right now. So.

Give me one second. That is the funding link. So they're going to talk about GPSI and GA internships if you haven't signed up, like Doctor Chen said, 11:00 AM tomorrow, central time. That links right there. There are a couple of other questions that came in. I know we're kind of running close to the time, but English proficiencies, those are things that that are kind of a student by student.

Situation, I am going to put a link real quickly into the chat and that is only for international students that would need to do that. Some of those waivers are automatic based on the country you lived in, but some of you also have work experience. That link I just put in will go through all of that for you.

There was one question that came in about a requirement SOPHAS. Is that a requirement for application MPH?

Yep.

OK.

Awesome.

And so that's kind of the the question that we've got real quick. I saw a student asked if you can register yet for the spring term. Registration for spring term typically opens up in early November. If you're an international student, you will work with our ISS office or International Student Services Office. There's a hold on your account until they know that you have kind of been granted that visa. You're going to send that to us.

And then we can can open that up uh. Otherwise, uh, some international students will will uh get into classes once they arrive in Springfield?

But yes, if you've got things taken care of and and things early in terms of deadlines, the university itself doesn't have deadlines. We we get things as they come in. As a domestic or U.S. citizen, you can apply pretty close, you know, to the time. Just remember for spring.

We do have a holiday season around December and so if it, I would encourage you to get everything in by by early November so you have time to get admitted, to get advised and get into classes. For many of our international students, the issue isn't the university, it's it's being able to get the documents you need and to sit for your actual student visa. And so that's not really a university requirement and it varies by country to country and so I would tell you that.

If you're looking for spring as an international student, that's going to be tough just to get the visa process done in time. Not impossible, but tough for many of you. But if you're admitted for spring and for some reason can't attend this spring, you can defer your application one time and your application status page. That means change your start date and you could go to fall of 23, which would start in August instead of January, giving you about another eight months to get that process done. And so just something to think about.

But.

Thank you so much. And yeah, I see that if you want, I know the the student that was asking me about registration. I'll put my e-mail on there. You can get in contact with me, you can get in contact with Doctor Chen and we can get you to the to the right place, Janice, to make sure that that you're all set. So.

We.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then and just so everybody knows when we get back, there's only about a two week time period before spring classes start. So it becomes tight there. So that's why Doctor Chin was mentioning that. But thank you everybody for attending. Remember, this webinar will be sent to you. I know in the chat we've got, we've uploaded.

If you links in and some different information, but you're also going to get the PowerPoint and this presentation. And so thank you so much, Doctor Chin, for providing so much amazing information for these students. And we look forward to seeing all of you either as an online or on campus student with public health at UIS here really soon. Thanks, everybody.