Through leadership roles in Pitt’s Nursing Students Association (NSA), I have been able to engage in both global health and public health activities. During my sophomore spring/junior fall semesters, I was the Pitt NSA Service Chair. During my junior spring/senior fall semesters, I was the Pitt NSA President.

As Service Chair, I coordinated community service events on- and off-campus. The event most relating to global health was our holiday card donations to an orphanage in Bolivia. Another NSA Board Member knew the gentleman who ran the organization, which is how we established this opportunity. Our NSA members decorated cards with messages in Spanish, and both our members and the children in Bolivia benefitted from this cross-cultural connection.

During my undergraduate education at Pitt, I have also been involved in Chi Eta Phi, Kappa Beta Chapter and held leadership positions in this organization. Chi Eta Phi is a professional, community service sorority focused on “developing healthy communities through advocacy, collaboration, education, leadership, research, and service.” We complete service events each month, allowing us to learn about, connect with, and contribute to the Pittsburgh community.

Our most recent service event was working with Global Brigades, Vision Brigade. This opportunity allowed us to clean and process eyeglasses to be sent to partner communities abroad.

It has been incredible for me to see how global health permeates almost all of my Pitt experiences, even if opportunities were not primarily about this topic.