Describe your personal, educational, and professional experiences and how they informed your decision to pursue a graduate degree.
I grew up with the dream of being a doctor. This remained my dream until I got to UCLA and did not feel prepared enough to succeed in my pre-med courses. I first changed my major in my second year of undergraduate studies and four changes later, I chose to finish with Spanish and Community and Culture because the service learning component of the major allowed me to continue exploring opportunities within the health field. After graduating, I served with AmeriCorps for two years with their Community HealthCorps branch with AltaMed Health Services in East LA and Orange County. In this time I became more and more intrigued by public health and health policy. Having grown up low-income with limited access to health care and seeing the ways in which the quality of life of our gente are affected by this, I found my new dream and realized I wanted to go back to school to gain a stronger skill set and become a better advocate. The pursuit of an MPH brought me to Boston University School of Public Health where I studied Health Policy and Law and Maternal and Child Health. I’m thankful for my fellow peers who have been my accountabili-budies, my mentors along the way for their guidance, and mi familia for their support, it really takes a village y’all! I graduated last year and stayed in Boston after becoming employed with Health Care for All.
What challenges did you encounter along your educational trajectory? How did you overcome those challenges?
As mentioned above, I felt unprepared as a pre-med student at a huge institution. I went from being a big fish in a little pond back home to just an average fish in an unfamiliar ocean. I had a hard time letting go of what I had envisioned my career would be until I embraced that there are other opportunities in this world in which I can succeed in. I took a public health course, applied to the minor and didn’t get accepted. I kept at it though, I wanted to explore the health field and did so by doing research with a Latinx doctora studying the late effects of childhood cancer, doing service learning at clinics and an internship with several rotations at a UCLA hospital. All of this set me up to be a strong candidate for AmeriCorps and later my MPH.
As a graduate student I learned to get over my pride and ask for help. My dad passed away three months before I moved to the east coast for my program and the transition was tough. My siblings and I had taken on his care giving and I hadn’t had the mental capacity to grieve until I was 3,000 miles away from home. My first year was especially hard academically and my emotions and healing had me all over the place. I confided in a few new friends as well as faculty who nurtured me and gave me the extra push I needed be that a hug, a shoulder to cry on, or an extension when I genuinely needed it.
What advice do you have for individuals who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree?
– Believe in yourself! You are worthy, intelligent, and competent, you got this!
– Don’t wait for the right time, make the time right.
– Invest in building relationships with professors and mentors, start building genuine connections, build your network.
– Apply for scholarships! Loans are no joke, you don’t want to be stuck with them TRUST me.
– Ask for help/guidance, most of us don’t get to the places we want to be alone.
What did you enjoy most about your graduate/professional program?
I have enjoyed the people I met throughout my graduate program and the connections I am nurturing with them. This includes my classmates that are now my colleagues who cheer each other on as we run into one another doing work in the field. My professors who continue to plug me into their work and support me in my professional endeavors.
Chrystel currently works at Health Care for All in Massachusetts organizing and engaging a growing statewide coalition of consumer advocates, health care professionals, academics, and insurers to promote oral health through policy advocacy and grassroots organizing.
