Good Habits to Develop at the Start of Your Semester

Written by Kaylan Ware

After being away from your studies for the summer, it can be difficult to reestablish a routine that works for you. Incorporating daily practices that boost your mood and productivity early in the semester can increase your chances of developing good habits. Start by considering what’s important to you this school year, then try using these strategies to improve your productivity, balance, and well-being. 

1. Set intentions. Identify your values and goals this year. This does not have to be school related. Let’s say you want to learn a new skill or spend more time with friends. Decide on actionable steps to attain your intentions and reinforce your intentions daily by reflecting on them. It helps to write your intentions down and place them somewhere you’re likely to look. 

Here’s an example of an intention: “This school year, I want to engage in at least three co- curricular activities.”

2. Set daily goals. Either in the morning or the night before, reflect on all you want to get done in your day. Make a list and check items off as you complete them. Include smaller tasks like washing clothes and larger, more time-consuming tasks like finishing a presentation for class. This helps you maintain a realistic schedule for your day, giving you an idea of the amount of time you will dedicate to certain tasks and how much free time you may have.
3. Make sleep a priority. A poor sleep schedule can affect your mood, ability to cope with stress, your ability to concentrate and more. To begin prioritizing sleep, it would help to establish a regular sleep schedule and create a bedtime routine. Consider what your busiest day looks like and think about how many hours of sleep you’d like to get. Aim for 7-9 hours if possible. Having a bedtime routine may include showering, reading a book or meditating. Your routine can help relax your body and mind before bed. Be sure to limit screen time, too!
4. Practice mindfulness. There are so many ways to practice mindfulness. Deep breathing, yoga, coloring, and journaling are all activities where mindful strategies are present. Mindfulness activities can help increase emotional awareness and decrease stress and anxiety. Add mindful moments throughout your week by focusing on your breath, observing your thoughts, listening actively, and observing your surroundings using all five senses. 
5. Take a break. It can be overwhelming to consider pausing when you have assignments piling up and due dates approaching, but it is important to utilize breaks to rest and take care of yourself to enhance focus and performance. Build breaks into your schedule to rest and reset so you can tackle your next tasks reenergized. If you need help deciding what to do during a 30-second break or even an hour-long break, visit Campus Life’s Take a Break webpage for inspiration and resources.

Remember to be intentional about incorporating these strategies and practices into your everyday life. Sometimes it can be difficult to stick with an activity long enough to make it a habit. Try finding an accountability partner – a friend, classmate, or mentor – that will check-in and help motivate you to achieve your goals. 

Also, check out the Office of Health Promotion’s Instagram page (@EmoryOHP) for wellness tips and programs!

Kaylan Ware is a 2^nd year Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences student at Rollins with interests in health communication, health equity, and chronic disease prevention. She works as the Health Communications Graduate Assistant in Emory’s Office of Health Promotion.

How to Find a Mentor

Whether you’re mentoring someone yourself or have found someone to mentor you, there is so much to gain from the mentor-mentee relationship. In the past, we’ve talked about the benefits of mentoring others, and experiences with being a mentee. But oftentimes it can be difficult to find a mentor. In an ideal world finding a mentor is effortless—your professor takes you under their wing and gives you advice and recommendations, or your boss at work takes the time to really invest in your professional development. Unfortunately, this isn’t always how it plays out in real life, especially if, like me, you’re a little less outgoing. Finding a mentor isn’t only a requirement to complete your thesis. Having someone to pose professional questions to or help you get your foot in the door with certain jobs or activities can sometimes make or break how our lives and careers play out. Here are some of the steps you can take to aid in your search for a mentor:

1. Figure out what your goals are. If you’re looking for someone to guide you into the world of biostatistics, having a mentor in the global health department might not be what you need. Getting different perspectives can be beneficial, but its up to you to decide what works for you. You’ll never find the mentor you need if you don’t know what that is. Get clear on what your personal and professional goals are, so you can articulate this to others and identify people who can help you get to where you want to be. Beyond setting professional goals, however, you also need to decide the type of mentoring relationship you want.
2. Find the people who can help. Whether it actually is your boss or professor, or it’s someone you’ve never met, the first step is to identify who has the skills and experience to mentor you in the way you want.
3. Find the people who want to help. Just because you’ve found the perfect person to mentor you, doesn’t mean they have the time or energy to do so. If they aren’t responsive to your interest in connecting, it might be best to move on to someone who reciprocates your energy. The best mentor is a present one.
4. Reach out and establish a relationship. Try sending an email explaining who you are, why you’re interested in connecting with them (their research, career background, similar personal backgrounds), and asking if they would be open to a short meeting with you to ask them questions. Make sure you come prepared to this meeting with a handful of questions to keep the conversation going. Check out this article on informational interviewing if you need a refresher on how to do that. After the meeting send a follow-up message thanking them for their time and asking if they would be open to meetings in the future for you to continue to ask them for advice or questions.
5. Be respectful and responsive. Keep in mind that your mentor has their own life and career. Respect their boundaries. Also do what you can to make mentoring you as easy as possible. Respond to them promptly and keep them in the loop about your life. Make sure to let them know you value their ideas and express gratitude for the time and energy they put into mentoring you. This will help you continue the relationship into the future. Ensuring they feel appreciated will also encourage them to continue helping you whenever they can.

Remember, you deserve a good mentor as much as your mentor deserves a good mentee. Find the people who care about and respect you and do the same for them. Our mentors will likely change throughout our lives and careers, so knowing how to build these connections will be useful both here at Rollins and decades into the future.

Featured Image by Daniel Lerman on Unsplash

This post was originally published on March 27, 2022.

How to Introduce Yourself

Welcome to the Department of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health! To returning students, we are delighted to have you back! Returning MPH and MSPH students have a busy and exciting year ahead, culminating with commencement only nine months from now. Entering MPH and MSPH students also have a busy year, as you begin to gain the knowledge, skills, and philosophy needed to be influential public health practitioners. Our department staff and faculty welcome you all and look forward to doing all we can to make the year a success!

For new students, this might be your first introduction to the PROspective column. This short column appears each week and provides some sort of tip or encouragement on honing your career skills. According to this site: 

“career skills are the abilities that enable you to do your job and to manage your career. These are over and above the skills and technical knowledge you need to perform the tasks that are part of your job.”

The site categorizes career skills into three groups: communication, operating style, and career development. The University of Colorado provides a nice summary of 10 essential career skills needed for career success.

Career skills are as important a determinant of your career success as the knowledge, skills and philosophy that you learn in the classroom, but career skills are seldom included in the formal curriculum. To meet this gap, our department provides this column as a weekly reminder of their importance and to help students prepare for their careers after Rollins. Take some time over the coming months to browse the PROspective archive.

Since we are in the midst of meeting one another, today’s career skill focuses on the task of introducing yourself. You will be doing a lot of this over the next weeks, as new students meet one another and meet their course instructors. This Harvard Business Review article suggests a three-step process. Say something about your present self, your past, and your future aspirations. None of the three parts needs to be long, but this simple formula gives the person you are meeting a good idea about who you are, why you are here, and what you aspire to do. Like every career skill, practice is the key. Try out introducing yourself at home to a mirror; you’ll be ready the next time you are asked to introduce yourself in person.

A Retrospective for PROspective: 3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting at RSPH

Hi, my name is Chisom and I am a second-year Global Epidemiology Student here at RSPH. To my incoming first-years: Welcome to the Family! The decision you made to enroll here at Rollins will certainly reward you in the future. 

As a second-year student, I don’t have to reach back too far in my memories to remember what it was like to be in your shoes. This time last year, I had all of the usual anxieties and butterflies regarding relocating to a new city, making new friends, and embarking on a new educational journey. I mean, we’ve all been there before; being a young college freshman walking onto campus for the first time. But something about starting graduate school just hit different. 

Now, while I admittedly still have a great deal to learn during my time here at Rollins, I’d like to think that I still have some knowledge that I can impart upon incoming first-years. Specifically, what I wish I knew prior to starting classes last fall. Here are the TOP 3 Things That I Wish I Knew Before Starting at RSPH: 

1. Read your emails, download Corq, and sign up for events as soon as you are able to. 

As an introvert, myself, I agonized over the idea of forcing myself to get out and socialize. However, we all know that at a new school, in a brand new city, it can be pretty isolating to stay in one’s comfort zone and keep to yourself. So I highly encourage you all to read the emails that come in from your department as well as downloading the Corq app in order to keep up with events that are happening throughout the week. There are so many clubs and organizations that put on mixers in order to bring like-minded folks together so take advantage! I met some of my closest friends here at Rollins through these events. Just make sure, and I can’t stress this enough, that you are proactive in registering for events, especially when there is an attendance limit. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to network and meet new people just because you procrastinated getting a ticket. I’ve been there, it stings a little. 

2. Keep an open mind about your research interests. 

I know everyone means well, but I sometimes worry that immediately asking what our research interests are so early in our public health career can inadvertently cause us to pigeonhole our potential. I think it is super important to use your time here at Rollins to, yes, delve deeper into the fields that intrigue you, but to also remain open to all that is out there. Public Health is such an incredibly broad field. There are disciplines out there that you don’t know that you don’t know about. I came in with an interest in infectious diseases transmission in youth populations. However, through my coursework, I became incredibly interested and passionate about correctional healthcare and infectious disease transmission among MSM (men who have sex with men) in these settings. I can honestly say this was not on my radar prior to starting at Rollins and now, I have a real passion for it. Get out there, keep an open mind, and be a sponge to new information; you never know what might stick! 

3. Send that email. 

Listen, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and lose 100% of the races you don’t run. Send. That. Email. The faculty at Rollins, in my humble opinion, are some of the most helpful and accessible guides out there. You have some of the leading voices in the field at your fingertips, so you better use those fingertips to start drafting up some emails. Ask them for access to journal articles, advice on your thesis, assistance with acquiring an APE, etc. Do not let the possibility of not getting a reply hinder you from reaching out. It will always be worth it in the end. 

Now, I know I provided 3 things that I wish I knew but I can assure you, there are many more. Please know that if you are ever curious, need any advice, or have any lingering questions during your time here, feel free to reach out to me. I am always down to help out a fellow eagle! 

4 Skills I’ve Learned at RSPH

Now that I’m (finally!) almost done with my MPH, I’ve been reflecting on some of the skills and knowledge I’ve gained since starting the program. When I first got to Rollins a year and a half ago, I had no idea what to expect from this program. I chose public health, and epidemiology, for a reason, but I still didn’t know what concrete skills I would gain that I didn’t already have or couldn’t get from a job. I guess that goes to show that we really don’t know what we don’t know. I was blown away by how much we learned in the first semester alone. I started to recognize just how crucial this knowledge is for a competent public health worker to have. As we begin to start our careers, and perhaps face a bit of imposter syndrome, I thought I’d share some of the most useful skills I’ve learned here at Rollins, as a reminder of how far we’ve come.

1. How to critically analyze and understand scientific research. Despite studying STEM in undergrad, I could not have told you what a p-value was two years ago. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised at how thoroughly we were taught how to interpret research findings. Regardless of if we conduct our own research studies or not, understanding how to interpret the results of research and what a well-conducted research study consists of are incredibly important for us to make informed decisions regarding the public’s health, or provide relevant advice to the general public.
2. How to write at an academic level. Contrary to my role of running this blog, I’ve always considered writing to be one of my weakest points. The numerous papers, critiques, and peer reviews we’ve done in our classes have helped me significantly improve my academic writing. I’ve sadly found that despite my intentions of pursuing science to avoid writing, this is a necessary skill I’ll need for almost any career I pursue in the future. If all of the tools you’ve gained from your classes still don’t feel enough, writing a thesis or capstone will definitely make you more confident in your own writing abilities.
3. How to code in SAS and R. I still need my notes every time I use one of these programs, but this is something I almost certainly could not have taught myself. Even when faced with coding we haven’t learned in our classes, I feel more confident that I will be able to grasp new concepts, having mastered the basics already. I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to keep those EPI 534 notes for life.
4. How to utilize science to effect social and political change. Learning about some of the logistics of how policy change happens has made it clearer how research can be translated into actual improvements in public health.

There are countless many other things that RSPH has taught me, both hard and soft skills, but these are a handful that make me feel most confident in my abilities. Whether you’re about to start your public health career, preparing for graduate or professional school, or are only just beginning your journey at RSPH, remember that you are here for a reason! Rollins has given us the tools we need to succeed, now it’s up to us to use them!

Featured Image by Christin Hume on Unsplash

This post was originally published on March 20, 2022 by Alex Whicker

Research Conferences

This past week many of our colleagues had the opportunity to participate in the Society for Epidemiologic Research Conference, sharing with and learning from experts in the field from around the country. For many students, attending a conference for the first time may be an exciting, but intimidating experience. Presenting your research to strangers is a daunting task, but conferences can be a great place to make connections and learn more about your research field. Here are some tips on how to navigate a research conference to help you!

1. Plan ahead. No need to wait until you get to the conference to figure out your schedule! Find the conference schedule online and take a look at who the presenters are so you can make a list of what activities and presentations you want to go to. Are there any speakers you particularly want to hear? Search for your research interests so you have an idea ahead of time how you may want to structure your visit.
2. Conferences are a unique opportunity to meet people in person you might otherwise never run into. Whether it is someone you admire in the field or a fellow student with similar interests, taking the opportunity to get to know the other attendees could serve you in the future. If you’re too nervous to approach someone in person, try reaching out to them ahead of the conference and setting up a time to meet up.
3. Take notes. Even though you won’t be tested on everything you learn, this is still an invaluable experience for you to learn from. You probably won’t remember everything you hear at the conference, so keeping a pen and paper or your laptop around to scribble ideas down is smart. Plus, your thoughts from different presentations could be good conversation starters when networking with new people.
4. Set goals. Whether it be to meet someone new every day or to speak up when giving your own presentation (if you’re giving one!) setting specific goals can help you keep yourself accountable for using the conference to further your career goals.

Whether it’s your first conference or 100^th, conferences can be both nerve-wracking and fun. While you may be there for work or school, don’t forget to enjoy yourself! Take some time to explore a new city and reconnect with friends. If you’re interested in how SER 2022 went check out the Twitter hashtag #SER2022!

Featured Image by Terren Hurst on Unsplash

Organizational Socialization

In 2009, I joined the faculty of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Soon after I started, I noticed that it was common to receive an email from someone in the department saying that they had brought bread to work, and then announcing some good news (birthday, work achievement, pilot’s license, new home—it was a long list). Danes make great bread, so this was always a welcome email, but what was different for me was that the person celebrating was also the person announcing the good news. In the US, when we celebrate with food (more often cake), the cake is usually provided by someone else or by the department in recognition of another person’s good news. Learning this change in who brings the carbohydrates was part of my organizational socialization.

I was reminded of this experience while thinking that so many students in our department will soon be joining another organization, whether as graduates in full-time employment or as students participating in research or practicum experiences. Whenever you join a new organization, there will be a socialization process. According to Wikipedia, “Organizational socialization is the process whereby an employee learns the knowledge and skills necessary to assume his or her organizational role. As newcomers become socialized, they learn about the organization and its history, values, jargon, culture, and procedures.” Some organizations are better than others at helping newcomers with this organizational socialization. Formal orientation sessions are one mechanism and tend to cover the policies and procedures. Learning the culture and unwritten rules is a bit different. In our department, new faculty are assigned a “coach” to help with the process. This is someone that the new faculty member can ask about everything from the department’s policies and procedures to where to find a good lunch. New students are offered a chance to pair with second-year students with the same goal. If you join a new organization and find that it is not well-prepared to help you with socialization, you can take matters into your own hands. Find someone with whom you think you will have a good connection, and ask them to help coach you through it. Most people will be flattered to be asked.

Like so many things, preparation is key to success when you start a new job. Be prepared to make a good impression (I liked this video). And be prepared for the organizational socialization. More reading about organizational socialization here. Your socialization to the organization will happen. To make it easier and quicker, be prepared for this aspect of your new experience. It takes energy and investment of effort, so plan to use some of your starting time towards it. And if you feel that the available programs are leaving you short, seek out help. Everyone you work with has gone through the same and at the same workplace. They may well recognize the need to do better and will be open to helping you with an easier take-off.

Featured Image by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

The Struggle of Differentiating a Want from a Need

Written By Jordyn Kohn (Check out the original article on the Emory Financial Literacy website!)

I remember getting my first job in undergrad and finally becoming a more financially independent person. It was a very great feeling knowing that I could support my weekly finances such as groceries, apartment utilities, and other essential things. With the freedom of spending my own hard-earned money, I also was now able to fund various other things that were maybe not as essential, such as grabbing a coffee a few times a week, a new book, or even a weekend trip with friends. While I enjoyed the extra flow of money into my bank account every two weeks, I had to quickly learn the importance of differentiating a “want” from a “need”.

Throughout my years in undergrad, I continued working to support myself through most of my expenses. I realized that as I was receiving these biweekly paychecks, I was not paying enough attention as to where my money was going. What percentage of my paycheck was going to groceries? Utilities? Weekly coffee? I sat down and finally organized my finances and laid out a realistic budget for myself. I was honestly shocked to see just how much money was being unintentionally allocated to “wants” and not “needs”. It was time to reevaluate my priorities and differentiate what in my life was a “want” and what was a “need”.

This was definitely a difficult task as a young undergrad student who just got introduced to the concept of personal finances. I struggled with creating boundaries for myself and defining what I spent my money on. There were many times when I would find myself attempting to justify buying three coffees a week and labeling that as a “need,” because the caffeine addiction was real (and still is). After going over all my payments, both necessary and unnecessary, I was able to easily visualize where my money was going, and how much I was allocating to certain aspects of my life. This was no easy feat, and it was definitely a trial-and-error situation, but I came out of this experience with a much better understanding of where I should be spending the money I make.

Here are some tips that I can now share about differentiating a “want” from a “need”:

• If it’s something that is necessary for you to live a healthy life, it’s a need.
• If it’s something that you are choosing to buy but can comfortably live without, it’s a want.
• Ask yourself if an expense will make you happier or healthier in the long term.
• Don’t try and convince yourself that a want is actually a need, if it’s not a necessity, it’s a want!
• Control your impulse spending and stay mindful when you’re shopping.
• Don’t be afraid to reach out for help, whether it be a family member, friend, or even an online resource such as CashCourse!

Jordyn Kohn is a first-year MPH student concentrating in epidemiology with a focus in genetic and molecular epidemiology. When she’s not in class, she’s working with RSPH’s Enrollment Services, helping to improve the overall student experience. Currently, she’s working on implementing financial education tools for all Rollins students through hosting seminars geared towards topics such as budgeting. Jordyn has really been enjoying her time here at Rollins and in Atlanta so far, and is looking forward to beginning her second year this fall!

Featured Image by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash