School and Jobs Advice Megathread Part III

[u/SadBreath]

All job and school-related advice should be asked in here. Below is the r/publichealth MPH guide which may answer general questions.

See the below guides for more information:

1. MPH Guide
2. Job Guide
3. Choosing a public health field
4. Choosing a public health concentration
5. Choosing a public health industry

Past Threads:

1. Megathread Part I
2. Megathread Part II

[u/spicybung]

First, a little about my background:

I graduated university in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in public health. During my senior year I was introduced to GIS by a mentor, who emphasized that it was a powerful tool in the context of public health work. Having no access to GIS classes within my major, I took the GIS Specialization series on Coursera, which includes a student license for working with ArcMap.

I quickly learned that even a novice programming capability vastly increases what you can accomplish with GIS. This led me to picking up some Python. Then came another important lesson--ArcGIS is something I cannot afford, but that doesn't matter, because open source is where its at anyways.

I've spent some time playing around with QGIS, my focus from the start being on learning and using PyQGIS. I found the 'Automated GIS Workflows With PyQGIS' video course by Joel Lawhead to be a good resource, but I've learned the most by creating tasks for myself and then browsing the API or troubleshooting on GIS StackExchange.

Now I'm learning SQL and making my way through the Introduction to PostGIS workshop. I'm also kicking myself for not doing this sooner--the advantages of PostGIS over the file-based systems I've been using are plain as day, even for a novice.

​

My current mindset:

Broadly speaking, I want to leverage open source GIS to address global challenges that disproportionately impact low-resource settings, and which there is often little economic incentive to address. Whether related to population health, environmental crises, or the considerable overlap between the two, I imagine there are a variety of ways open source GIS can help realize solutions to these challenges.

I’m defining my interests broadly because I recognize that my specific interests will change over time, and because I'm inclined toward developing a strategy and the skills to implement that strategy--I’m less concerned with presupposing precise applications at this early stage. However, for the sake of grounding an otherwise abstract post, here are some specific examples of what currently excites me in the realm of open source GIS and public health/planetary health/environmental health:

• Work done at the SOMAARTH Demographic Development & Environmental Surveillance Site (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6231830/ )
• Researching the relationship between population demographics, land use change, environmental degradation, livelihoods and migration, and associated population level health risks (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Temporal+dynamics+of+land+use%2Fland+cover+change+and+its+prediction+using+CA-ANN+model+for+southwestern+coastal+Bangladesh)
• Creating and/or implementing tools for land use planning as it relates to a changing climate and urbanization (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30096916)

​

Now on to the advice. If you’re still reading this, thank you.

1. I’m unsure how to move in this direction in a professional sense. I know that furthering my education (i.e. graduate school) will almost certainly be a necessary step. In a perfect world I could get more experiential learning under my belt before making any major commitments, financial or otherwise, toward an advanced degree. Any insight is appreciated--recommended schools/programs given my background and interests, ways I can gain experience on real-world projects, etc.
2. Given my trajectory, starting off working manually in ArcMap and moving toward working from the Python window in QGIS and writing some processing scripts externally, up to now, learning SQL and PostGIS, what is the next step in growing my capabilities with GIS? And is there anything (programming languages, software packages, etc.) that are part of a GIS users toolkit and that I’ve missed up to this point? There has been no shortage of resources made freely available for me to pick up technical skills, and I enjoy learning this stuff. I just want to make sure that I’m aware of everything that is out there and that I don’t waste my time or skip any steps.

[u/SadBreath → u/spicybung]

I would find an organization that's doing good work, and try to get involved however possible. While you're working on that, think of some sort of analysis project you find interesting, do a really good job at it, publish it on GitHub, and put it on your resume.

I'm not sure public health is the obvious choice, and certainly not the best ROI. You could go directly for a Masters of Geospatial Statistics, or go towards the more known Masters of Public Policy.