The University of Michigan’s School of Public Health will be expanding its undergraduate program, starting with this fall’s incoming class. Since its start in 2017, the program has been unable to admit some applicants due to class size restrictions. This year, they aim to change that, with the goal of accepting all qualified applicants for fall 2024.
The program accepts applications from undergraduate students in their sophomore year, who, if accepted, join a cohort of students who take advanced public health courses in their junior and senior years.
Applications for the upcoming academic year were due Jan. 15. The school offers two degree options: a Bachelor of Science in Public Health Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts in Community and Global Public Health.
Reem Fawaz, assistant at the Office of Undergraduate Education, graduated from the program in April 2023. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, she said the COVID-19 pandemic was a primary motivator for the expansion of the program, as many students have since become aware of the importance of public health.
Fawaz said many students, especially freshmen and sophomores, have an interest in medicine but are not sure what specific field they want to pursue. Fawaz discovered the program herself at the end of her freshman year, which led her to apply and ultimately be accepted into the program. Over the two years she spent in the program, she grew to appreciate the field of public health more and more due to its applicability to a variety of different fields, eventually leading to her involvement in managing the program itself.
“I really think that any student, whether they’re pre-med, pre-health, pre-law or want to study in the public health field directly, can gain a lot from a public health education,” Fawaz said.
In an interview with The Daily, Olivia Jeong, Public Health senior and undergraduate admissions ambassador, said she was drawn to public health because she wanted a different perspective in the field of health care. In addition, she was drawn to the small cohort size of the program.
“I knew pretty early on in college that I wanted to be pre-med, but I also wanted a different perspective within the field of health care,” Jeong said. “I feel like public health was a perfect major to do that. It covers a lot of different sectors within the healthcare field. I also heard it was a super intimate cohort, where there’s about 100 students in each grade. And I always heard super positive things about the faculty and the environment and culture there.”
Public Health alum Amanda Malingagio agreed that the small cohort size was beneficial. She said that in addition to the small cohort size fostering a collaborative environment for learning, the classes also draw interdisciplinary connections between fields, such as a class on the intersection of pop culture and public health.
“I knew that I was interested in the health care field, but I didn’t know what that looked like,” Malingagio said. “Because there are so many different avenues to take and then when I found out what public health is and that it encompasses so much more than just healthcare, I thought that it’d be the perfect fit for me.”
Similar to Fawaz, Malingagio also said she believes a public health education can be applied to many fields. Malingagio said the experience she has gained from being in the Public Health School will help her in her pursuit of attending medical school.
“I’m applying to medical school right now, and (my public health degree) will be super valuable because I have both the scientific background … (and) I will also have more of the social context from my public health degree, which I think will be super valuable going forward,” Malingagio said.
Fawaz encourages any student with an interest in public health to apply to the program, reiterating how meaningful the work in the field is and emphasizing the ease of forming connections with both peers and professors in the program.
“If there is a specific opportunity that you don’t see in the school, there is a means for you to be able to create that for yourself,” Fawaz said. “If you are passionate about health prevention or health education, whether through social justice or law, health policy or education, there is a place for you in the School of Public Health.”
Daily Staff Reporter Anna Jerolimov can be reached at annajero@umich.edu.