Global Health Minor
Last year, I remember having a conversation with a friend who was hoping to go into healthcare consulting. She mentioned that she was doing the new Global Health minor, which sounded great for my aspirations as a physician.
The minor is offered through the Anthropology department, and at least four classes out of the six must be Anthropology classes. The minor includes an introductory Anthropology course, and five core classes in social studies of medicine, cultural approaches, biological approaches, methodological approaches, and interdisciplinary approaches.
So far, I've taken four out of the six classes: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Statistics, and Sociology of Gender. While all these classes are different, they all contribute to the field of Global Health and form the foundation of a Master in Public Health, which several Dartmouth students choose to pursue.
The Global Health minor is based in the humanities, which means you get a more nuanced understanding of the subject beyond the science of health. For me, my Global Health classes really complement my pre-health classes because they give my STEM classes a humanistic lens to see the humanity of medicine.
The Global Health minor also helped me during my Dartmouth Dickey Center Global Health Internship in Vietnam as I was able to apply tactical skills from my classes in a real life environment with healthcare cases. I used statistical work from my minor's statistics course (SOCY 10) to analyze case numbers and my knowledge from Introduction to Biological Anthropology to understand the root of disparity in medicine in different countries.
When I travelled around Vietnam with my host mom (pictured) in order to gather data, I used knowledge from my Global Health minor to understand differences in Vietnam healthcare in rural versus urban areas.
Overall, I have really enjoyed my Global Health minor. This new minor proves that Dartmouth is always innovating and creating new opportunities for students!