Blog #1

    Hello, my name is Lauren and I am currently a senior here at Stockton and I am majoring in Health Science. My plan for after graduation is to continue on to medical school and focus my studies on anesthesiology. I hope to also enlist into the military, I have yet to decide which branch and complete my residency through my active years. For the past few years, I have been working as a lifeguard at Hopatcong State Park, which is located in north Jersey, and have recently been promoted to an officer position. Unfortunately, I have had to utilize my life saving training on multiple occasions, including the one time that I had to perform CPR on an individual, which sadly was not successful. I have three cats: Fluffy, Fish, and Hank, along with two foster kittens: Simon and Teddy. While I do have five cats in my house, Fish is the only one that is truly my own. 🐱 She is a tortoise shell and calico mix, so if you know anything about cats, you would know that those two breeds are some of the most attitude prone. However, my cat is the sweetest and she can do no wrong (I would assume that any pet owner would agree with me about their own pet). Also, a fun fact about me is that I currently have eight tattoos and am planning for more in the future. 

    I am a very visual learner, unfortunately I cannot picture things when they are said to me, I do need a visual if the information calls for one. I do enjoy a discussion based class, such as this one, I believe that learning concepts and then discussing them in the classroom is very beneficial in not only remembering those concepts but also being able to apply them yourself. I also discovered that a certain learning style that a former professor used was very helpful in learning new information: memory recall. This professor would introduce us to the new material then would have us work on an example then after that would later have us recall certain concepts from the beginning. Essentially would have us learn it, then forget it, and then we would have to recall what we learned earlier. 

    When thinking about health disparities and health equity, one of my first thoughts are food deserts, one specific food desert would be Atlantic City. I also think about low-income areas and the challenges they face when they need to access health care, or sometimes even information about healthcare. I am hoping to learn from this class, not only about the health disparities and the health equity challenges that African American women face, but how I could help with those disparities and equity challenges. The concepts for this class are crucial for my future career goals and it is important to me that I understand them and know how to apply them to real-world settings.