Reinvigorating Integrative Learning Experiences: Translating Graduate Program Skills to Careers

For the spring semester of 2021, two University at Buffalo faculty collaborated and built a course to address Council on Education in Public Health (CEPH) competencies and support student career readiness. This new course builds on the existing Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) to enhance its transmissibility for future employers and help students articulate their ILE as evidence of the strengths gained during their MPH program. Throughout the course, students focus their ILE on one public health topic as a set of high quality, written materials that promote synthesis, including a literature review, executive summary, and gap analysis. These assignments must demonstrate synthesis of foundational and concentration-specific competencies students gained from their coursework, including at least one competency related to equity, structural racism, or cultural competence. To supplement the ILE process, students develop additional components allowing them to translate skills and knowledge from the MPH program into career-ready materials such as a revised resume, a cover letter, and mock interviews. The goal for these supplemental components is to allow students to demonstrate their abilities with prospective employers. All students in the initial spring 2021 cohort and subsequent cohorts are currently working in public health-related jobs.