Public Health Pathways: Making the Most of Career Conversations

There is no shortage of career information. The harder part is turning information into clarity.

As an international MPH student, I often found public health career advice useful but incomplete. Online resources could explain job titles, common skills, and possible sectors. Informal advice could also make pathways sound straightforward. These suggestions were helpful, but they did not always answer what I was trying to work through: which pathway might suit me, what experience would help me move closer to public health work, and how people actually move from studying public health to working in the field.

As graduation came closer, I realised that I did not need one perfect answer. I needed a better way to ask questions, understand options, and turn uncertainty into action.

That was what led me to career conversations. As someone who is more introverted, I found reaching out to people uncomfortable at first; reaching out felt uncomfortable at first. But confusion became more useful when I turned it into questions. Not every conversation gave me a clear answer, and sometimes I left with more questions than before. Over time, though, these conversations helped me notice four things: how to ask better questions, look for entry points, understand my experience more clearly, and turn advice into next steps.

Before the conversation: start with a decision

A useful career conversation starts before the conversation itself. It starts with knowing what decision I am trying to make.

At the beginning, many of my questions were broad because my understanding of the field was also broad. I wanted to know what I should do next, which direction I should choose, and how I could move closer to public health work. These were real questions, but too large for one conversation to answer.

Over time, I realised that a useful question is not only a question that sounds well prepared. It is a question that helps with a real decision: whether a pathway is worth exploring further, whether a student leadership role could build relevant experience, or whether I need to strengthen a technical skill. Even without a direct answer, the conversation could still help me think more clearly about the decision in front of me.

When exploring options: look for access, not just job titles

I used to look for the right job title. Later, I realised that the better question was: what can this opportunity help me access?

Before these conversations, I often looked at roles such as research assistant, health promotion officer, or evaluation assistant as fixed destinations. This made the pathway feel narrow, because many roles already seemed to require experience I did not yet have.

Through different conversations, I started to see the field less as a list of ideal job titles and more as a map of possible entry points. An entry point may not be my final career goal, but it can still help me understand the sector, meet people in the field, or move one step closer to the kind of work I want to do.

For example, I might once have looked at student society or website work and thought, “This is not really a public health job.” But over time, I started to see that it could still help me understand student needs and how public health-related conversations happen in practice. Career pathways began to feel less like a straight line from degree to ideal role, and more like something built through small but meaningful entry points.

When building experience: ask what the experience shows

Experience does not automatically become evidence. It becomes evidence when I can explain what I did, what it required, and what it shows.

Before having these conversations, I sometimes thought career development meant doing more things: volunteering more, attending more events, and taking on committee responsibilities. These experiences were valuable, but simply doing them was not enough.

For example, even small student or volunteer tasks are not only about “helping out”. A task can become more meaningful when I look at the work behind it. Did I only attend, or did I help coordinate something? Did I organise information, follow up on a task, identify a problem, or help move a project forward?

This changed how I thought about my own experience. Instead of only asking whether I had done enough, I started asking whether each experience could become useful evidence in a CV, cover letter, or interview.

For me, this was not about making my experience sound bigger than it was. It was about learning to describe it more honestly and clearly. The same experience can sound weak if I only describe it as a task. It becomes stronger when I explain what I was responsible for, what I learnt, and what capability it demonstrates.

After the conversation: write down one next step

The value of a career conversation does not end when the conversation ends. It depends on what I do with the advice afterwards.

Advice can feel useful during a conversation, but if I do not reflect on it afterwards, it can quickly become vague. I found it helpful to keep short reflection notes, not as transcripts, but as a way to organise what I learnt and decide what to do next.

Over time, reflection notes helped me see repeated advice, challenged assumptions, skill gaps, new organisations to explore, or a more useful person to speak with next. Sometimes the action was small: changing the questions I asked next time, looking up an organisation someone mentioned, updating part of my CV, or thinking more carefully about which opportunities were worth pursuing.

A simple reflection template I found useful includes:

·       What pathway or sector did this conversation help me understand?

·       What assumption changed after this conversation?

·       What skill or experience gap did I notice?

·       What is one concrete next step I can take?

For me, reflection helped turn career conversations from isolated chats into a learning process. It helped me move from simply receiving advice to actually using it.

Why Public Health Pathways?

Public Health Pathways is being piloted from a simple problem: students often have access to information, but not always to interpretation.

Career panels, coffee chats, and informal conversations are valuable, but many insights disappear after the event or conversation ends. By turning some reflections into written resources, this series aims to make career exploration more accessible, especially for students who prefer to prepare through written content before attending events or reaching out to professionals.

This first article is not a complete guide to public health careers. It is a starting point for thinking more actively about the transition from student life to professional life. Public Health Pathways begins with the idea that students do not only need more information. We need ways to turn information, conversations, and experience into clearer next steps.

Written by Z.H Mei