Jared Beekman: the Water-Hugger

My name is Jared Beekman. I am sophomore at Johns Hopkins University studying environmental engineering. My interest in my academic career has not changed much over the time that I have been at Johns Hopkins; I have always wanted to be an engineer. However, why environmental engineering? I would never have considered myself an “environmentalist”, or a “tree-hugger” (as my heavily conservative brother would like to call me), but I find myself increasingly submerged in the idea of becoming an environmental engineer. Perhaps it is because I knew I wanted to help people, and I was not going to be a doctor. And perhaps as an individual I can make a small change in this world, but as an environmental engineer, the possibilities are endless. Environmental engineering is a practical, technological, and growing field, not only evaluating the state of the environment but providing the tools to take action, to change the world on the largest scale. Yet the “largest scale” must be defined before the right tools can be used to fix anything; you have to know where the water is leaking before you can plug the hole. That is why I am taking Introduction to Public Health.

As defined in the first lecture of this course, the role of public health is “to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury, and disability.” Although this definition resembles much to what medicine science entails, there are some differences. Most significantly, public health is focused on the population, whereas medicine science is concentrated towards the individual. Public health involves analyzing the environment, communities, and populations to promote increase in physical, mental, and psychological health.

My interest in public health is mostly centered on an experience I had last summer: a mission trip to Fond Parisien, Haiti. The people there were some of the most loving and spiritual people I had ever met, even though they were also the poorest people I had ever met. In fact, Haiti is among the poorest countries in the world. In the duration of my time there, I learned a lot about the struggles these people encountered every day that Americans take for granted: clean water. This struggle has given me a clear vision of what I want to do in life, and public health is where this vision can begin. By understanding the relationship between the environment and people, and evaluating what diseases exist and how they can be prevented, public health can have a great impact on my interest in improving water quality in Haiti. I want to get the basic knowledge in interpreting population data on an environmental basis from this class.

I know that this class can give me answers I need to continue my pursuit in environmental engineering; they are very similar and should be coupled to provide the best sources to my interests. The first few lectures in Intro to Public Health have proven informative and relatable to said interests, and I am looking forward to discovering more about public health, as well as recording my thoughts in this blog.