1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,040 Hi everyone, it's Odette here. I am the founder of her authentic crown and right now you're 2 00:00:08,040 --> 00:00:16,040 listening to my podcast called Queen Citizens. So I'm glad that you decided to tune in. 3 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:27,040 I'll be talking about my confessions as a recent public health graduate. So let's get into it. 4 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:34,040 To start off, I wanted to mention something that didn't mention in the previous episode. 5 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:41,040 So a lot of people when they hear public health, they think nursing or medicine, 6 00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:54,040 I just want to say and clarify that to do a master's in public health, you don't need to have a nursing degree. 7 00:00:54,040 --> 00:01:02,040 Also don't need to be a doctor. Now at the U of S there were a lot of students were international students 8 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:09,040 and I think many of them that were pursuing these degrees are similar to degrees if something like health sciences 9 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:14,040 or population health sciences which I'll discuss in future videos. 10 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:21,040 They actually were doctors and in Canada some people who are doctors, they can't practice here. 11 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:31,040 So that's why they do this master's programs. And some of the students they already have a master's degree and they're doing a second master's degrees. 12 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:42,040 That being said, I like to say that with public health, you're focusing or population health, you're focusing on a community 13 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:52,040 or maybe you're focusing on a nation, but when it comes to nursing or medicine, you're focusing on a patient. 14 00:01:52,040 --> 00:02:07,040 Now if you ever hear the term global health, which I believe I did mention in my first episode of this series, global health is like more worldwide. 15 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:18,040 So when I said I wanted to work for WHO, WHO is a global health organization, their focus is more worldwide and not just one country. 16 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:31,040 So today I specifically wanted to talk about how to get a student job and how I finally got a job in my field. 17 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:41,040 So to get a student job, the first thing is you gotta make connections with your supervisors. 18 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:52,040 That's one place to start because given that they are researchers, they probably have a project for you to do. 19 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:58,040 Like I was able to do data entry for a project. 20 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:10,040 Now at the university, I was also employed by another research lab and I discovered that position by going to like a research fair. 21 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:22,040 So all universities have some type of research fair research day where students from different faculties present their research posters. 22 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:29,040 And it's a great opportunity to see what your main, what your interest is. 23 00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:42,040 I had an interest in nutrition, believe it or not, and I noticed there are some students that were doing these studies that had to do with nutrition. 24 00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:46,040 And I wanted to get involved and they told me there's a lot of projects going on. 25 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:53,040 She was a student professor in email and that's how I was able to get a job. 26 00:03:53,040 --> 00:04:05,040 So when you're drafting an email, you always want to be super professional, like saying hello, doctor, in the person's last name or dear doctor. 27 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:16,040 I learned the hard way of not being professional because if you're unprofessional, the supervisor or the professor may not even respond. 28 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:20,040 I also want to mention why you want to be involved. 29 00:04:20,040 --> 00:04:30,040 So do you some research, maybe read an art published article to understand more about the research interest. 30 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:34,040 There could be even like a web page that you can look at. 31 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:44,040 Another thing that I have learned is that some research jobs I put in coal are not paid. 32 00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:50,040 Now I want to say you want to be very careful of some of these paid on paid opportunities. 33 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:56,040 Some people would say, oh, it can lead to a paid opportunity down the line. 34 00:04:56,040 --> 00:05:05,040 In my case, that didn't happen. I did this on paid project and let to another opportunity that was also on paid. 35 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:11,040 So for me personally, it got to a point where I was like, you know what, I've been in school for a long time. 36 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:15,040 I want to be paid. I think I deserve to be paid. 37 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:23,040 And as students, I think we do deserve to be paid. You have skills and you have knowledge and you're able to learn. 38 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,040 So I do think sometimes it's not always fair. 39 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:33,040 Some of these projects that are on pay keep in mind it can be a lot of work and investment on your own time. 40 00:05:33,040 --> 00:05:47,040 Yes, there might be some rewards such as publishing or a coal or going to a conference and winning the best poster prize that's happened for me and something to put on your CV. 41 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:56,040 But I'm telling you there are other opportunities where you're getting paid and you could still put that on your CV. 42 00:05:56,040 --> 00:06:01,040 While I was a student, there are these projects called ripen. 43 00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:08,040 There's something called venture for Canada and there's also something called, what was the other one? 44 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:10,040 Level up. 45 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:21,040 There's non-profit organizations, there's small non-profit organizations that have some type of health promotion activity. 46 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:33,040 So I was really grateful, especially during COVID when they're funding provided to certain supervisors or certain small nonprofits and businesses. 47 00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:44,040 That really helped me and I would say it is really good pay and all I had to do was mostly just to sign up. 48 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:53,040 The entire, any type of interview process like with the level up projects is not super complicated. 49 00:06:53,040 --> 00:07:02,040 So maybe if requested, I can go into detail more about the difference between venture for a Canada and level up projects. 50 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:14,040 It's available to students who are Canadians and if it's never done these type of projects before, you'll be given like high consideration. 51 00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:31,040 Because that was basically doing those type of projects as my job, even though you're not considered an employee and the employers technically not paying you, the, it's, these programs are funded. 52 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:35,040 But you do get like a T4 A at the end too. 53 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:39,040 I highly recommend doing some of those projects. 54 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:50,040 And even if it's not related to public health which happened in my case, you're still getting some type of experience and from those projects, that's kind of, 55 00:07:50,040 --> 00:08:03,040 I started thinking about actually becoming an entrepreneur and creating opportunities for myself and not only that recognizing the gaps and how I can address certain needs. 56 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:10,040 Like I think girls education is a need for sure. 57 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:21,040 And I do hope that one day I could potentially, yeah, contribute to that space by raising money for girls education. 58 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:29,040 But anyways, moving on to moving forward with finding student jobs. 59 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:39,040 When I cost to finding student jobs too, like you can talk to the classes of other departments and some professors that they get. 60 00:08:39,040 --> 00:08:45,040 They get really good funding and I know that there's some of departments. 61 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:47,040 One of a professor gets funding. 62 00:08:47,040 --> 00:08:52,040 It's announced in some tech, the newsletter or newspaper. 63 00:08:52,040 --> 00:09:01,040 So if you see any professor that's getting a lot of reward to a lot of funding, that's your sign to reach out to that professor. 64 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:03,040 But of course to your research first. 65 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:09,040 You want to make sure that the research topic is interesting to you. 66 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:13,040 Because with public health there's so many different research topics. 67 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,040 It's not just nutrition. 68 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:21,040 It could be mental health, which was another topic that I was interested in. 69 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:23,040 Now moving forward. 70 00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:29,040 How can you get a job after graduation? 71 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:36,040 The very first thing to do is you want to start to apply early. 72 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:43,040 I kind of wish that I would have gone to more conferences because that conferences you can make connections. 73 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:48,040 You don't have to spend a ton of money on business cards. 74 00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:55,040 But if you could have like a, at least a LinkedIn share with people. 75 00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:58,040 That can help you big time. 76 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:09,040 Another thing is not just making professional connections to, but think about who's already in your network. 77 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:13,040 Let's say someone in your church community. 78 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:15,040 That could help you. 79 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:18,040 What about friends and family? 80 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:20,040 That can also help you. 81 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:24,040 So I got my first job through a referral basically. 82 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:35,040 So it was, it was not through a professor or a former classmate. 83 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:44,040 So if you're just signing up for jobs on a website like indeed, indeed, those types of employers 84 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:53,040 you see so many applications and it could be likely that you're up your resumes being screened out. 85 00:10:53,040 --> 00:11:00,040 The most frustrating thing about the job process is that a human is not always reading your resume. 86 00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:09,040 And that's probably why they're not providing you any feedback, which makes it so frustrating. 87 00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:17,040 One of the biggest things about how to get a job really do a store research early. 88 00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:25,040 I thought that by going into bios statistics, I could work for a pharmaceutical company. 89 00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:36,040 Now, to work for a pharmaceutical company, you need to have not only are they looking for experience, which I didn't have, 90 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:43,040 you want to have experience with like clinical trials, which I didn't have. 91 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:50,040 And without that, it's just very, very hard to get into that position. 92 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:57,040 I actually thought initially, from the very big idea I could work for like Johnson and Johnson, 93 00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:03,040 or there's a lot of pharmaceutical companies out there, 94 00:12:03,040 --> 00:12:06,040 then they do hire bios statisticians. 95 00:12:06,040 --> 00:12:13,040 Sometimes they prefer people who have the PhD and by the time I was looking for jobs, 96 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:18,040 there's no way that I had a PhD, right? 97 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:23,040 So that's the biggest thing that I have learned. 98 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:34,040 Another thing for students that are going into masters is also looking to study abroad opportunities. 99 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:40,040 I think that could definitely widen your horizon so much. 100 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:47,040 Now, some of these abroad opportunities too are not always well paid, so that's the downside. 101 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:50,040 Sometimes there's a stake in sometimes or not. 102 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:56,040 So you really have to evaluate your financial situation. 103 00:12:56,040 --> 00:13:04,040 So if you want to hear more about how to get a job abroad, 104 00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:08,040 I would love to talk more about that. 105 00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:11,040 I did. 106 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:17,040 It was a mission trip in Honduras, but I raised money for that mission trip. 107 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:21,040 And we weren't even there for a month, it was like, oh, me. 108 00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:29,040 So I'm very self-pressed, I'm still learning about how can I go abroad one day and be able to work abroad. 109 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:36,040 Some of these work abroad opportunities that I was looking into were not really related to public health. 110 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:39,040 And if they were, they weren't paid. 111 00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:49,040 So I would love to hear comments and suggestions and ideas of how to get into that international space. 112 00:13:49,040 --> 00:14:00,040 Like, for me when I joined my program at the Genos COVID-19, so I didn't have the opportunity to do the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee scholarship. 113 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:08,040 If you do have that opportunity, if you do get that scholarship, I'll highly recommend that you go. 114 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:11,040 Because I wish I wouldn't have been able to go. 115 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:20,040 You have to be a student for those ones and you have to be able to work in the country for 90 days. 116 00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:27,040 I had the opportunity to go to Barbados, but then I was so close to being done my program. 117 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:31,040 And I didn't want to continue to pay tuition. 118 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:42,040 So I also given my financial circles, I was having a lot of students that didn't even start being paid off, I couldn't go unfortunately. 119 00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:49,040 Yeah, I feel like I should actually advocate for more opportunities for recent graduates. 120 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:55,040 Because a lot of times, some of these internships are like, you have to be a student, you have to be returning full time. 121 00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:58,040 And I'm not exactly sure why that is. 122 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:04,040 Anyways, that's just my opinion. Let me know what you think down below. 123 00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:09,040 This episode's getting quite long. So I think I want to sign off here. 124 00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:12,040 So once again, this is Odette. 125 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:16,040 I'm the creator of her authentic crown. 126 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:24,040 The link to my website will be in the description box along with my other socials. 127 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:28,040 So once again, it's at her authentic crown. 128 00:15:28,040 --> 00:15:33,040 And yeah, you're listening to Queen Citizen. So hope you tune in next time. 129 00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:58,040 Bye.