- What was your Undergrad Institution and Major?
Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from San Diego State University. - What encouraged you to pursue this health communication degree?
After a long career in advertising working on campaigns for consumer packaged goods, I migrated to working on campaigns for hospitals and health care systems which felt much more personally satisfying. Eventually this led me to leave the world of advertising and accept a job as Director of Creative Content in the marketing department of Northwestern Medicine.While I felt very confident in my ability to market a healthcare system, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of not only how a large hospital system is run but a broader sense of how the US health care system works. I wanted to learn not only why US healthcare is so complicated and problematic, but how I could create more substantial ways to foster greater health literacy, stronger patient engagement and affect change on a deeper level. I believed a degree in Health Communication would help me put the work I was creating into a larger context in order to forge more meaningful connections to both current and prospective patients. - What are your career goals?
My career goal is to have a larger role in leading a creative department in a healthcare setting by combining my creative skillset with what I have learned in the program to foster collaboration and create more effective communications. - Any tips on balancing school, work, and life?
I am a list maker. It has helped me to list all my assignments and readings and block out which tasks I was going to tackle on which day. I am a firm believer in knowing when to take breaks and knowing when to stop. I sat up late one night after a long day of work staring at my computer, tired and frustrated because I could not make sense of how I was going to structure a paper. I decided to just go to bed. After a good night of sleep, I woke up, sat down at my computer and the structure came to me effortlessly. Sometimes you need to give your brain a break even when you are convinced you do not have the time to spare.
- How do you practice self-care while in the program?
Many of us spend a great deal of time in front of the computer screen in our jobs. This program requires that we spend even more time hunched over our desktops. I strongly recommend scheduling a massage a couple times during the quarter. Your neck and shoulders will thank you. I also recommend letting go of the idea of a perfectly clean house, at least temporarily. Everything won’t be perfect and letting of this self-imposed expectation relieves a lot of stress. Another way I practiced self-care was to impose a self-ban on wine drinking on Fridays. Saturdays can be very long and even a glass or two can make me drag the next day. Plus, there’s always Saturday night!
- How have you been able to use the current content in your work?
As I write this, I am only 5 weeks into the program, and I am amazed at how often I have already been able to take what I have learned here and apply it to my job. One example is a presentation I was asked to create to showcase the work Northwestern Medicine does in the community. While I was aware off the concept of Social Determinants of Health, I did not have a deep understanding of the direct and indirect ways these factors affected health. I was able to pull from the materials in class and demonstrate my understanding to create a more powerful and persuasive piece.
