Go where you "fit in".

I rarely speak of my career in terms of regret but when I think about how DESPERATELY I want to be in a more "people" oriented phase of my career right now, I come VERY close to feeling exactly that, HUGE regret. I spent most of the weekend thinking about how to satisfy this insatiable urge to not only be around people, but work with "people people" too. Then I realized that with the summer coming to a close soon, I hadn't spent ONE DAY at the county hospital as I had originally planned because I was so busy busting my ass for what worked out to be a short term research rotation. BAD IDEA.

Ironically earlier yesterday, one of my sista' mentors (with a PhD) sent me an email out of the blue where she said that she thought I needed to move to another research group. She knew of the "social dynamic" of my group with me being the only American and native English speaker. But I hadn't told her the details about everything that was going down since May. So it was nice to hear from her because I had planned to call her later in the day anyway. And like I mentioned earlier, I'd been thinking ALL WEEKEND about how much I longed to be in a more "people type" program around more "people" type people.

She also told me that in her opinion, it was a terrible idea for me to try to create a joint partnership between my current department and the med school, and she said that before I shared with her the info I was getting about why a partnership between the two wasn't already in place. Even more ironic was her telling me that she thought my personality was better suited for research in public health because of the possibility to work on projects with patients. More importantly, I could have the opportunity to conduct research with people I have more in common with because EVERY grad student knows that camaraderie with your peers is a MUST for survival. So with the knowledge that there is already a partnership between the school of public health and the med school, I've decided to meet with some folks in this area to gather some info before I register for my classes this Fall.

Now in terms of my interest in Informatics, there are two different directions I can go as far as the med school is concerned, Public Health or Basic Science. And that's it for established programs with an Informatics option. So given that I have ~ 15 credits toward an MPH already on my lengthy transcripts, that's the direction I'm leaning in today, emphasis on leaning. I need to FIRST figure out what department/division is a good "fit" for me by meeting with a few professors (I already have a few meetings set up with Public Health folks because they have research assistantships available to students from my current department), attending some seminars, and talking to a few students. Basically, I'm LONG over due with getting in where I fit in!!