Today, there are so many avenues that people can take in creating and maintaining relationships. Technological advancements have propelled relationship-building to new heights making it easier to connect with individuals on a global scale. Even now, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we think about the impact it has had on current relationships and how we can continue to develop them during this time. Public Health aims to promote and protect people and the communities where they carry out their daily lives. The field of Public Health emphasizes the importance of developing relationships with individuals and communities and understanding the relationships that already exist within them. Public Health concepts also emphasize knowing and understanding the relationships I have with myself and my environment and in what ways do they present themselves. The relationship a person has with their environment and individuals within it can have a positive or negative impact on a person’s overall health. As a Public Health student with plans to serve communities, it is vital that I can understand and establish authentic relationships at local and governmental levels to assist in aiding the true needs of communities. Through my experiences, I have come to learn and understand the power of developing relationships and creating environments that foster relationships that lead to change towards healthy outcomes for myself and others.

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In many of the courses I took, we dive deep into the power of relationships. When referencing relationships several words can be used interchangeably such as interaction, connection, association, links, bonds, and correlations. All these words I heard throughout my time in the classroom and began to see the connections like a spider web. There were a few courses that emphasized the importance of understanding and knowing the relationship I had with myself, before proceeding to do so with others, causing me to reflect on my values, mindsets, and motives. My PYSC440: Survey of Personality course opened me up to know myself when talking about the Big 5 Personality Traits, which are openness, consciousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and narcissism. Understanding my scores which were high in openness, extroversion, and agreeableness slightly below the standard deviation in consciousness, and low in narcissism sparked a curiosity in me to further understand who I was and why? I was able to identify and understand my lower level of consciousness, which was associated with organizational skills and timeliness, which are things that I truly struggle with, and began to put extra effort into because I felt seen. As we explored more into the Big 5 one that really stuck out to me was openness. I will never forget when I learned that opening yourself up with others invites and empowers them to do the same. We joined openness with the concept of vulnerability and that sparked the outlook of relationships that I have now. The world sees vulnerability as weakness, but this class exposed vulnerability for its strength which can lead to honesty and transparency, resulting in stronger bonds between individuals. This course allowed me the opportunity to understand the influences that created my personality which included my experiences throughout development, morals, values, and behaviors to name some. This course opened the door to becoming more self-aware as incited my curiosity to know me.

 

The Socio-ecological model considers the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors; allowing us to understand the range of risk and protective factors. This model was applied in my Public Health and Community Psychology courses to truly understand an individual’s behavior and opportunities that positively and negatively impacted their health and well-being. Understanding this model I learned that we are simultaneously affected by many things. In the neighborhood we live in, access to healthy foods I was glad to be introduced to this model because I began to think in levels and started to apply them to myself and beyond the classroom. In my EXCS 191: Physical Activity and Health we had to create smart goals. I had to utilize the socio-ecological model to understand my personal barriers, which made me more empathetic to individuals similar and in harder situations like me. Article 1, is my SMART Goal assignment that made me think and understand my life. Creating the smart goal made me realize that creating a little smart goal requires you to really think about everything you're currently going through. A smart goal is specific, measurable, achievable, reliable, and timely. I will admit, I did not want to think about that stuff. I knew I did not have time and I knew I did not have money.  I also knew I lacked effective organizational and time management skills. Regardless of this, I had to push through for the benefits of healthy outcomes.  Through this assignment, I was able to establish solutions to my barriers, and it empowered me to overcome them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Volunteering with the Columbia Food Policy Committee (CFPC) was a fun experience that allowed me to develop relationships with citizens. The CFPC is made up of different individuals that are from SNAP-Ed, the City of Columbia, local farmers, and health and wellness organizations. They focus on food equity, sustainability, social justice, and economic development. The CFPC is currently working to bring a mobile food market to the areas of food insecurity. I was able to assist in the needs assessment process through the use of a survey. Interacting with community members was an inspiring experience because I could tell that members of the community were genuinely excited about the mobile market. I was happy to assist in creating relationships with them on behalf of the CFPC and City of Columbia and also hand out free masks to survey participants. Below is Article 2,  an Instagram boomerang, holding a hand-drawn sign. I am a lover of wayfinding, and when I first got to the library we didn't have a sign. I felt this took away from the process and knew that signage was important or people would think that we were just people outside. I took the initiative to run to the store, grab a poster board and markers, and demonstrate my artistic abilities. Within five minutes of holding up the sign, we began to see more individuals pulling up. That was an empowering moment for me because I trusted myself and intuition, and it paid off.