By: Paige Scofield Campus Life Editor
Western offers a wide variety of degrees that students can major in, many of which students don’t know are offered, or know next to nothing about. This week, in “Get To Know a Major:” receiving a bachelor of science in community health.
Maressa Milat, a junior, is working towards receiving a bachelor of science in community health with a minor in human biology. Although she didn’t come to Western for that specific major, she knew she wanted to come here. “I came to Western to attend a small school rather than a big state school,” Milat stated.
Originally Milat was going to major in nursing, but she didn’t like how competitive it was, so she switched her major to community health. “You can do so much with a major in community health,” she said. “There are a lot of careers available to someone educated in that field.” According to Western’s website, those fields include: medical care facilities, colleges and universities, public health settings, non-profit community health organizations, private businesses and building a foundation for beginning advanced/graduate level work.
“I’m thinking about taking more of a social worker job, that checks in on families, children and the elderly,” she said. “That’s something that I think is a really important job in our society.”
The community health major is described on Western’s website as a program that, “… prepares students to work with individuals, groups, and communities to promote health and prevent disease and disability. Students develop professional skills and competencies that include: assessing individual and community needs, planning and implementing health education programs, evaluating the effectiveness of health education programs, coordinating health education services, acting as a resource person for reliable and valid health information,advocacy and communication of health needs and information to multiple audiences in socially and culturally appropriate ways.”
When asked what her favorite course she had taken so far was, Milat replied, “Human sexuality is my favorite so far. I like how open everything is and there’s no judgement.” She added, “Most of our classes are taught in a lecture style, and our class size is fairly small, so it’s easy to communicate with other students and my professors, I like that a lot too.”
Contact the author at journalcampuslife@wou.edu
