Getting Settled at DGHI: A Cross-Country Adventure

Rare sunny days in Washington are made even better when “the mountain is out,” a saying in Seattle that refers to Mt. Rainier being visible.

Published September 19, 2016, last updated on October 12, 2017 under Voices of DGHI

By Tessa Concepcion, 1st-Year Master of Science in Global Health Candidate

I was hoping it would rain on my last day in Seattle, a sort of "PNW" (that’s “Pacific Northwest”) sendoff for my adventure to the South. 

But it was a beautiful, cloudless, sunny morning as I began the 9-hour flight from Seattle to Durham (layovers make for cheap flights, but long days). The next few days that followed were a pretty intense whirlwind of new experiences, information and sensory overload. I started orientation three days after arriving and within that same week, I scrounged up an entire apartment of furniture and got a pretty impressive sunburn. 
               
I chose Duke's Master of Science in Global Health for a variety of reasons. Duke is an extremely prestigious institution, it has one of the few Master of Science in Global Health programs in the country, and I had a very good friend attend nursing school at Duke who has been raving constantly about the school. 

An underlying factor to all these reasons, however, is that Duke represented a brand new adventure far away from everything I knew as home. And it has been nothing but an adventure since I arrived four weeks ago. 
                
My undergraduate experience differed greatly from my masters thus far. At the University of Washington, I was one of thousands and, while I didn't realize it at the time, it was very easy to get lost in the numbers. My master’s experience has been the polar opposite. Every professor, advisor, mentor and (especially) second-year master’s student is an open door and a wealth of advice and knowledge. Being two years out of undergraduate, I was concerned about whether I’d be able to get back into the groove of studying, but the professors and small class sizes (my largest is 40 compared to more than 500 at UW) have made transitioning from working back to education easy.
                
Then again, maybe “easy” isn't quite the right word for it; this is by far the most complex learning I've ever done. Since day one of class, I’ve been pushing my brain to think of global health solutions that the most intelligent people in the field haven't thought of yet. I’m learning about burdens of disease, designing research projects, analyzing data and writing code—all while simultaneously figuring out where the closest grocery store is and why hushpuppies are so delicious.
                
Everything was new here: my friends, the climate, my education. With the aid of advisors, professors, peers and the occasional kind stranger, I slowly began acclimate into life here in Durham. Now the dust is finally settling: I know when my bus comes and where my classes are, and the only new aspects of my life are the material in class and … seeing a cockroach for the first time.

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