{"id":730,"date":"2019-07-27T14:25:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-27T18:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/?p=730"},"modified":"2025-04-29T10:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:04:50","slug":"730","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/2019\/730\/","title":{"rendered":"Where to From Here? Tackling an Uncertain Personal Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Where to From Here? Tackling an Uncertain Personal Future\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

By: Monica Sourial<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we start getting into the summer, I have some time to reflect on where I was exactly 1 year ago. I had just finished my undergrad degree at 杏吧原创, and I had no idea what I was going to do next. I had always thought that I would end up in medical school since I always had my mind set on becoming a doctor. I hadn\u2019t applied to any other programs so when I didn\u2019t get accepted I felt a complete lack of direction. As soon as graduation rolled around, I quickly started to feel the pressure of everyone around me asking; what next? And my answer to that question was always \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kakabeka Falls, Thunder Bay<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While experiencing these adversities, it brought me back to how I felt when I first moved to Canada at the age of 12. Although I had my parents with me, it was definitely challenging to adapt to a new way of living. As an introvert one of the most difficult things I encountered was making friends. It took me some time to adjust and get connected but once I did I started to enjoy life. I started to keep busy through volunteering and one of the places where I still volunteer lets me explore the country going from one province to the next. The reason I tell you this story is to say that I have been through hardship before and I was able to find my way through it. But to me it felt like this situation was putting me under through immense pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Greenwich Dunes National Park, PEI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, all I knew was that I wanted to stay in the healthcare field, so I started to think about some of the courses that I had taken which I really enjoyed. One of those courses was Regulatory Issues and Human Health, in this course I was introduced to the process of policy making and how healthcare functions. It was the first time that I was exposed to a completely different side of healthcare. And I was immediately intrigued and wanted to learn more about how policies are made, what steps are taken into consideration before coming to a decision. I took some time to think about what my next step would be, so I started to research graduate programs relating to policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, it was already nearing the end of June and many of the programs I was inquiring about had already closed their application process. So I was looking at programs that would be starting in the winter or spring of 2019 and once again I felt like I was going nowhere as I wanted to start graduate school right away. Luckily for me, I was able to submit a late application to the Health, Science, Technology and Policy (HSTP) Program at 杏吧原创 with the help of a few professors. Since starting the HSTP program, things started to fall into place. I joined Dr. Peter\u2019s lab \u2013 the Spatial Determinants of Health lab to focus my research on rural health. I have also just started a summer position at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) where I get to learn more about the different topics and issues we discuss in class and apply my knowledge through the work I do. And I can\u2019t wait to see where this road will take me next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Monica Sourial As we start getting into the summer, I have some time to reflect on where I was exactly 1 year ago. I had just finished my undergrad degree at 杏吧原创, and I had no idea what I was going to do next. I had always thought that I would end up in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[71,76,1,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic","category-free-range","category-general","category-health"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"student-female"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1168,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/determinants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}