My Education

During the last few months, I’ve taken to tossing around the acronym “CHE” and am surprised when my friends don’t instantly know what I’m talking about. For some reason, after explaining it once, I assumed that my friends should remember what it meant, seeing as how it has quickly grown from being my newest extracurricular activity to my favorite. (Or second-favorite … intramural inner-tube water polo might give it a run for its money, but that’s another story for another blog. Stay tuned.) CHE stands for Community Health Educators, one of Yale’s community service groups, which I joined at the beginning of this past semester (http://www.yale.edu/che/about.html). CHE was founded in 1999 as an answer to New Haven’s lack of an institutional health education program for middle and high school students. Health education is sometimes taught in science classes, sometimes in other classes, and sometimes not at all. After a New Haven high school counselor spoke with a Dwight Hall Public School Intern (Dwight Hall is Yale’s umbrella service organization, the largest of its kind in the world), CHE was formed. Today, more than 150 volunteers present workshops in 22 schools to address topics like nutrition, drug & alcohol use, and healthy relationships.

Dwight Hall

I joined CHE for a number of reasons. One of my main motivations was a conversation that I had last summer with a friend whom I met through a research internship in Lausanne, Switzerland. At one point I mentioned sex education, the at-times-excruciatingly-awkward-but-let’s-face-it-ultimately-important rite of passage through which every sixth, ninth, and twelfth grader underwent in my school system, and one of my friends asked, "What’s that?” I was somewhat baffled that someone as well-educated as my friend had never heard of sex ed. When I returned to campus in the fall, I decided to get involved in CHE.

As excited as I was, I could not have imagined how incredible teaching would be. It has been a growing experience, as I’ve learned to handle difficult questions and controversial topics, and to always remain non-judgmental. My job is to deliver accurate information and, as a college student, to do so as the students’ peer. Most exciting is the realization that I am making an impact on these students. Whether a student lingers after class to speak about something that clearly is burdening him or her, or an initially silent classroom, by the end, is buzzing with questions and answers, I realize that I am often one of the only reliable sources of sexual education in these students’ lives. I leave each classroom exhilarated and eager to return.

CHE is the type of program that could wash away any cynicism you might have toward community service. In fact, the program has been so eye-opening that, in combination with several other factors, it’s prompted me to consider a career in public health. While I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, I hadn’t looked into public health and now that I’ve begun exploring the field, it seems to be a perfect fit. I’ve been spending massive amounts of time over break looking into public health internships and graduate programs and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

Although it’s wonderful to be home on break, I can’t wait to get back and to begin teaching in classrooms again next semester. If I’m lucky, not only will I teach in receptive classrooms and know that I’ve made a difference, but I’ll be assigned to the high school that “looks like a spaceship,” according to the information sheet. What could be better?

A sneak peek at the spaceship-high school (it doesn't do it justice).