The Student Experience - Studying, Internships, and COVID with Sejal Dubey
We talk to Sejal Dubey, college student and Boost Oregon's summer intern, to hear about her experiences during the pandemic.
Sejal shares with us some of the challenges and opportunities that she encountered as a graduating high school senior and new college freshman. She and host Ari O'Donovan talk about the importance of self-care and why they are drawn to public health.
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Our Host
Ari O'Donovan
Our Guest
Sejal Dubey, college student and Boost Oregon's summer intern
Transcript:
Ari O’Donovan (00:00):
Thank you so much for listening to boosting our Voices. This program has been brought to you by Boost Oregon. You can find them online@boostoregon.org
Sejal Dubey (00:13):
And they never take priority over the assignment that's due. So that's definitely something that I stumbled a little bit with in the beginning of the school year and then kind of took a step back and realized that it's not negotiable. Those are literally necessities for life.
Ari O’Donovan (00:32):
All right, welcome back y'all. My name is Ira O'Donovan and I'm Boost Oregons Diversity program manager. I'm a native Oregonian and a member of the black community. We now have the latest episode of Boost Oregon's brand new podcast, boosting our voices. We're gonna keep amplifying Bipo community voices in Oregon. So let's get into it. Say please tell me a little bit about yourself.
Sejal Dubey (00:56):
Hi, so I'm Fa Dube. I was the Boost Oregon Summer intern for 2022. I am currently going into my sophomore year at the University of Oregon studying biology on the pre-med track. And yeah, I'm also a native Oregonian and I was born and raised here and love every second of it.
Ari O’Donovan (01:16):
That's so awesome. We're really glad to have you on the show, SE Joel, it's been so amazing to work with you during this summer and we have seen a lot of things happen over the last years since 2020. So I'd like to go into a little bit about you about your internship and what it's been like to be a young person in college and in high school during a pandemic. So the first question I wanna ask is what did you do outside of school during the pandemic and how did that possibly impact your extracurricular activities?
Sejal Dubey (01:57):
Yeah, so the pandemic hit when I was right in the middle of my junior year of high school, which is crazy to think that we're going on year three of it. But yeah, during that time I think the biggest thing for myself, other people my age and people not my age was just the social aspect of being constantly sort of locked up in our homes in order to fill that void. I did end up spending a lot of time with myself. I remember during the first, the summer of 2020 that like very beginning period of covid when everybody was like genuinely just locked up at home. I spent a lot of time outside. I remember that was when I got my first pair of AirPods and I was so excited about them. I was just listening to music with my AirPods in all day. I would walk to the park by myself.
Sejal Dubey (02:48):
I kind of started painting. I tried to do things that were creative. I tried to cook a little bit more and I spend my skills there, which was honestly really fun. As far as my extracurriculars, I was part of extracurriculars that had a very large social aspect to them for sure. One of them was working with at Oregon Health and Science University osu, sort of a mentorship program where high school students mentor fifth graders in different science topics and the whole point of the program is so that they can get hands on in-person experience in a lab, doing really cool science activities that they wouldn't get a chance to do in a classroom. Well obviously the hands on in-person part of that was completely taken away and so I did spend the summer still part of that program planning for how we could adjust the whole curriculum to be online and to still get some materials out so that the kids could enjoy those activities from home.
Sejal Dubey (03:50):
And then another part of my extracurriculars that had to transition online was I volunteered with Planned Parenthood to do a lot of peer education and we would go to health classrooms in different high schools around the district and we would teach health classes in real time. So all of a sudden we kind of saw the side that teachers saw of having to teach online during the pandemic and how difficult that could be for engagement and things like that. Just keeping people interested and still being able to get this really important information across. So yeah, I think that was one of the biggest transitions was just for everybody. But yeah, for in that context with switching everything online,
Ari O’Donovan (04:34):
All of that is amazing. I remember when the pandemic started too and I'm a very social person, <laugh>. I like to go out and do a lot of things with a lot of people and I'm definitely the event planner friend. I always have something going on and you couldn't go anywhere. There was a point where they had told people, We don't even want you walking in parks. We don't really want people outside in large numbers. And that was really hard for me. I had to focus on doing things inside, keeping up with family and friends over zoom, finding new ways to do diversity outreach from home because that social aspect of it was temporarily removed. So I totally understand of how difficult that can be, but if you really focus on it, you can find ways to stay connected to other people to still do extracurricular activities and I am very amazed and happy to know that you had found a way to do that.
Sejal Dubey (05:33):
Thank you. Yeah, and I'm sure you experienced a lot of the same things that I was talking about. A lot of it kind of felt like problem solving of like how can we take this experience and just translate it so that it's still accessible to people maybe just in a different format now.
Ari O’Donovan (05:49):
Absolutely. The name of the game was definitely adapting. You just had to find a way somehow. <laugh>, I'm so glad things have gotten better <laugh> for everybody.
Sejal Dubey (05:59):
Oh my god, me too. It's just crazy to think it. It felt completely different but felt like apocalyptic almost.
Ari O’Donovan (06:07):
Yeah. Yeah, it, it's something I've never seen in all the time I've been alive and I know it's something that you've never seen in the time you've been alive either. So I think we adapted pretty well <laugh> in all eyes.
Sejal Dubey (06:20):
Yeah, I do too. I do too. I think it was definitely something that made people come together a lot. Like I could not count the amount of times that I heard we're all in this together. Like we're all going through the same thing. Everybody's finding this really difficult, so let's all try to contribute and see what we can make of
Ari O’Donovan (06:37):
It. That was the truly remarkable thing about this pandemic. People found so many creative ways to stay connected, to stay talking to each other, just being around each other without having to be in the same room.
Sejal Dubey (06:53):
Absolutely. I feel like I went from one day, I'd never heard of Zoom in my life. The next, the next day I woke up and all my classes were on Zoom. Anytime I wanted to talk to my friends, it was on Zoom. All my, everything outside of school, everything was centered around Zoom.
Ari O’Donovan (07:09):
Yeah, I had always used Zoom for work, but now I'm like a champ, total pro with Zoom because I use it every day now <laugh>.
Sejal Dubey (07:19):
Yeah, it's just a part of normal life
Ari O’Donovan (07:21):
Now. Exactly. So tell me a little bit about how the pandemic affected your transition from high school to college. I know graduation from high school is a big deal when you are a teenager and you're about to start a new journey in life. I can't imagine doing that during a pandemic.
Sejal Dubey (07:41):
Yeah, it was definitely really crazy and a lot of us were worried that we might not even get a prom or we might not even get a graduation because that was what the previous class the year before us, um, kind of had to give up, which is like really unfortunate. So I feel very grateful and blessed that we still got to experience those milestones and we got to do it with our friends and family there in person. My graduation was in the pouring rain <laugh> so we, we were lucky enough to have it in person but it was out on the football field. We were all socially distanced and kind of just sitting on the field for a few hours getting rained on. But <laugh> it's still good memories. Kinda a funny story. Um, and we were really lucky to have that. As for the transition, I would say the biggest thing was again the social aspect just because going for so long without really having the socialization that we were used to, especially like for high schoolers like and for kids in school, the biggest form of socialization is going to school every day seeing the same people in classes.
Sejal Dubey (08:50):
So all of a sudden kind of being used to having a, a class of 30 or 40 kids maxed to not being used to socializing at all and then jumping straight into a 400 person lecture hall was really overwhelming at first. Especially you know, going to a school, University of Oregon has about I believe 26,000 students that go there. So just a completely overwhelming amount of people. But it was honestly a really good experience to go in and like kind of be thrown into the deep end with socializing again. I feel like at least personally it was kind of a good thing because I kind of just woke me up and I was like, okay great, we were presented with this great opportunity to make friends and everything and just forget the past and like let's just try to move on and meet new people.
Ari O’Donovan (09:41):
I think that's the best way to handle that type of situation too. I know that I was taking classes at PSU and I had to deal with that same type of transition. You've been taking classes online for two years or more without a choice. That's just the only way the classes were offered and now you're going back to class in person in a lecture hall with all these students and it's a whole new world. I can imagine how that was for you to, I'm glad that you were able to adapt pretty well and it sounds like you were really excited to get back to doing that type of thing, being in class, seeing other students, seeing your friends and having a normal college experience.
Sejal Dubey (10:26):
Yeah, I guess the pandemic made me realize it's one of those things that's just really easy to take for granted is like the routine being the same people every day and getting to have face to face interactions. So when that was all of a sudden taken away, it was really difficult and I was just so glad to have it back. I couldn't wait.
Ari O’Donovan (10:45):
So I'd like to know a little bit more about your experience. How did you find opportunities to get involved when you started college?
Sejal Dubey (10:56):
Yeah, I almost feel like it's hard to avoid opportunities to get involved at college because there's just so many of them thrown at you constantly, both virtually and in person. I was really grateful to be able to walk around campus, see people again of course, but one of the things that comes with that is big gatherings and having big events that colleges often have like career fairs or club fairs and things like that. So that was definitely one really good way that I got to find, For example, I was a member of the student health advisory committee, which is sort of a liaison between University Health services and the U of O student population. So I was able to join that because I found out about it at a club fair, uh, which was a really great opportunity and also kind of was a stepping stone into future opportunities.
Sejal Dubey (11:47):
So I feel like it's something that's like once you kind of get started getting involved, it gives you sort of a networking sort of vibe so that you can get involved in other things. You know, I know a lot more now about what's going on behind the scenes at University health services or who I can talk to who might know about volunteering opportunities or job opportunities. And so making those connections is definitely really helpful. If you just go into it with an open mind and kind of are willing to try out different experiences, they will just find their way to you. Honestly. Another thing that definitely helped me was just checking my email because departments, at least at my school, the biology department will send out a lot of emails about scholarship opportunities or employment opportunities or research opportunities. And some of them are applicable, some of them aren't. But if you pay attention a little bit sometimes you can find really, really good things to get involved with there.
Ari O’Donovan (12:46):
That's fabulous. I love how the experiences that you're seeking out and ways to get involved are very, very directly related to what you wanna do professionally. I think that's going to help you learn more about what the job might be like when you get there and just developing greater ways to connect with people.
Sejal Dubey (13:08):
Yeah, I totally agree. I've been involved in a lot of, a lot of things that are sort of surrounding community health, public health and health education also. And I've found through all of these different opportunities that I've kind of touched on, I've found that I really have a passion for it and I can't get enough of it. So I really love finding more opportunities, more things that I can add to my sort of personal like portfolio and they've really also helped me personally to become more confident in providing that information to people.
Ari O’Donovan (13:43):
That's amazing. I love to hear about students being amped up about learning, developing their people skills, working with diverse communities and really reaching their own goals. I have so much faith in usage, Joel, I know you're gonna do well in life.
Sejal Dubey (14:00):
<laugh>, thank you. That means so much coming from
Ari O’Donovan (14:02):
You. Thank you <laugh>. So tell me a little bit more about the skills that you developed that helped you in college, any that you'd like to share in particular.
Sejal Dubey (14:14):
I think the biggest skill that I developed during my freshman year is time management, which was honestly really surprising to me because throughout high school I never really realized how structured my day was, but every day was kind of just wake up at the same time, go to school at the same time while you're at school, you're just in class and then after school's over, you know, you do your extracurricular activities or whatever until the evening and then whatever time is left over you do your homework during that time. And that's pretty much, much what my day consisted of most of the time. So each portion of it was blocked out for me and there wasn't really that much time management because it was already managed for me. But then once I started, once I started my education at college, it was like a free for all.
Sejal Dubey (15:08):
You know, classes are kind of dispersed throughout the day. They're not always consecutively back to back. So you might have gaps in between. You might have like you might be done with all your classes by noon and you're just left with the rest of the day to do whatever you want. And it can be really difficult to like separate social time from academic time, from whatever other personal time, self care time and all of that. So I think just this getting used to like, you know, separating all of those things and having a set time for socializing makes it a lot more easier for me to dedicate my time towards my academics when that's
Ari O’Donovan (15:51):
Needed. Time management, that is a skill that I am still trying to master myself. So good for you girl <laugh>, that is not easy to do and I've heard it said that every day is a 24 hour gift and you can make really good use of your time and get the most out of your day or you can waste a bunch of time and get to the point where at the end of the day you feel like you haven't really accomplished much. It's hard to find that balance when you have a lot of things that you have to tend to every day, but it's a really important skill, especially as a student.
Sejal Dubey (16:26):
Yeah, for sure. I also found that all of a sudden having everything to do with personal care, whether that even be like taking the time to eat breakfast or lunch or dinner or you know, setting aside time to go take a shower, go on a walk. If my head is feeling all jumbled and I'm, I'm having anxiety about something, like setting aside time to do all those things can be honestly really difficult if you don't really know how to split up the limited amount of hours that you're given in a day.
Ari O’Donovan (17:00):
Right. And that stuff is so massively important though. Cause as a student, if you're taking like more heavy duty classes like science and math and biology and and organic chemistry and these kinds of things, you'll sit at your desk for hours and not move cuz you're focused on learning something and you know you have an exam coming up and you're trying to prepare for it, but you have to get up and move, go for a walk, make time to shower and do personal hygiene and, and just things to keep yourself calm and happy during the day. It's so important to do and a lot of people forget that.
Sejal Dubey (17:40):
Yeah, I mean it's so important to do that personally. And then I found that once I started putting more focus towards that um, and dedicating more intentional time towards it, it helps me perform better academically anyway. You can't study and be productive on an empty stomach. You're not gonna do well on the test if you only got a few hours of sleep that night. So putting intentional time towards that is something that really helps me. And thinking of those things, sleeping, eating, those are non-negotiable. Those are necessary for life and they never take priority over your academics or your grades or the test coming up or the assignment that's due. So that's definitely something that I stumbled a little bit with in the beginning of the school year and then kind of took a step back and realized that it's not negotiable. Those are literally necessities for life.
Ari O’Donovan (18:34):
So that's a quotable moment right there. I'm gonna find an opportunity in a social media post or somewhere to put that information in a quote cuz people need to hear that that is so important. They really are non-negotiables and like every day you just gotta have that mentality about them.
Sejal Dubey (18:53):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I mean it's easy to think about it with sleep because if you have 24 hours in a day, eight of those hours are blocked off for sleep. But you know, eating takes time and like to sit down with yourself and eat and not be doing homework while you're eating. It's totally okay
Ari O’Donovan (19:09):
<laugh>. Absolutely. And it takes time to prepare food in the morning or during the day if you're, if you happen to be home rather than just going to McDonald's a couple times a day, which is not really the best thing. <laugh>, it takes time to prepare healthier meals but you gotta make that time because like you said, if you don't make time for yourself, if you don't put it in your mind that it's non-negotiable for that you're going to be doing worse on exams, you're not going to get the information and lecture that you need to be getting because you're not taking the time for yourself. It's a mental health concern too. Mm-hmm
Sejal Dubey (19:47):
<affirmative>. It definitely is. Mental health is, I could, that's a whole other podcast episode <laugh> on its own. I could that forever.
Ari O’Donovan (19:56):
I know we might have to have you back cause I would love to have a whole other conversation about mental health that is near and dear to my heart. I feel so strongly about mental health and and encouraging people to take care of themselves. So you are right. That's a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day <laugh>. But before I deviate too far off into the world of mental health, tell me about how you found out about our internship opportunity at Boost Oregon.
Sejal Dubey (20:28):
Yeah, so my tips earlier about being open to new opportunities. I wasn't just saying those things. I did them too and they helped <laugh> so, uh, yeah I was just, you know, keeping an eye on my inbox and I just, I got an email from the department head who has, you know, an email list of thousands of kids who are in that department and I happened to see something about an internship program that I was eligible for. So I was like, okay, I'll apply for it. It was for a summer internship program and I didn't have any plans for the summer and you know, I wanted to get some sort of new experience, do something through the summer that would get me up outta bed in the morning so I'm not waking up at noon because it's really easy to fall into that trap. And yeah, I applied for the program I got in, I was able to find out about Boost Oregon and the mission and the work that is being done and I was really, really interested right off the bat.
Sejal Dubey (21:26):
It was my top choice of internship site and so I applied for Boost Oregon and I was able to interview with Ira and it was just, it felt like a really pleasant conversation, honestly more than an interview. Um, I walked away feeling really good about it and feeling like it was a really good fit. And I guess y'all thought so too because here I am. But yeah, I think just going into all those opportunities with an open mind and just thinking, you know, not all of them go as smoothly as this one did and, and that's totally okay. I mean we all have our, our fair share fails to, but as long as you go in with an open mind is always that chance that uh, you'll find a really great opportunity.
Ari O’Donovan (22:08):
Amazing. I love that you're one of those people that says what they gonna do and then they get out there and actually do it. That is amazing. Always be open. Yeah, always be open to new opportunities cuz you never know, you never know what the world has for you and you'll miss out if you are never open to anything. And I remember our interview, my interview with you and it was amazing. I'm so glad that we were your top choice. That means a lot to me cuz I love Boost Oregon. I love what I do here as diversity program manager and I'm glad that I can give that type of experience to an intern for the summer so they can gain insight into something that they might not know a lot about in the world of vaccine education.
Sejal Dubey (22:59):
Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, I'm gonna be very frank, I came into this experience knowing absolutely nothing about vaccine advocacy specifically. And I feel like I've learned so much through my time here, even though it's only been a couple months. But, um, yeah, it was, it was a great experience. Going back to what I was saying earlier, like not everything goes super smoothly to be very honest. I applied for, once I got into the in internship program, I applied for a few, I wanna say three or four different internship sites and I didn't hear back from any of the other ones and it was kind of a bummer, but you know, at the end of the day now I can a few months in the future from that I'm looking back and I'm saying, well I ended up with a great opportunity anyway, so I'm glad I was, was open to the experience. Not everything was perfectly but, but yeah, like this ended up being such a positive experience for me. So
Ari O’Donovan (23:54):
Wonderful. And that worked out great for us. We got an amazing intern that a bunch of other internship opportunities missed out on and now you have something that you can go forward in your life and use when you become a doctor and you're talking to patients and it's just great. It's great for everybody all around this whole internship experience and I'm so happy it,
Sejal Dubey (24:19):
It's so great. I've been so
Ari O’Donovan (24:23):
Awesome. Can you tell me what your favorite part of your internship with Boost has been?
Sejal Dubey (24:28):
Yeah, I think just the focus that Boost Oregon has on making connections with people. I mean, you can really tell with the staff. The staff are all very, um, all really care for each other, all willing to pick up for one another and are willing to kind of, you know, cover each other. So it's a really positive working environment. This is my first professional work experience that I've ever had and it was just, it was just a really great work environment to work in. And then as far as the work that Boost Oregon does, I really loved the fact that Boost Oregon puts a focus on individual education and talking to people one on one about personal health decisions because yes, there's a lot of organizations that focus on community health and public health, but I think it's a lot more unique that Boost Oregon focuses on that, but also emphasizes the importance of having conversations with people, um, and addressing their individual concerns and their individual questions because, um, forming that bond and that trust is something that you can only do one on one in my opinion.
Ari O’Donovan (25:37):
Yeah, people really have to feel like they have agency over their own health decisions. The moment that you try to take that from somebody, they are done listening to you. They are done seeing you as a credible source of information, as someone they could trust to guide them in the right direction. People wanna have agency over overall their decisions and especially something so important as one's health or any aspects related to that. And we put a lot of focus on that. Like you said, at Boost we as staff members working together, we care about each other, we care about other people. We try to make a welcoming environment and a place where people feel like they belong here. Whether it's a, it's an intern like you coming on a new employee or just out doing community outreach in a general way. Each time we go out and do it, we really wanna make sure that people feel like they're welcome with anything that we do.
Sejal Dubey (26:40):
It can be really beneficial. The Boost Oregon has a small central staff because I feel like that makes it more possible for each person to do that one-on-one work, you know, with the way that you do when you're out doing outreach or the way that doctors are able to do it, that come to our workshops and take away that knowledge and are able to implement that one on one with their patient. Yeah, I think it's really powerful.
Ari O’Donovan (27:05):
Yeah, I love that about Boost. I love that we are a smaller nonprofit and we can really put the focus where it needs to go and when we tailor our resources to communities, we can actually take the time to do that and really get those details going for the people that really need them and who are using our resources. That's one of the best things that we do. Versus if we were a much larger organization and there's so many people working here, it's hard to find that, that personalization like that.
Sejal Dubey (27:40):
Yeah, I totally agree. The focus is something that makes Boost Oregon so effective I think.
Ari O’Donovan (27:46):
Absolutely. And I know this is not the end for you, Sage, so please tell me what's on the horizon for you now.
Sejal Dubey (27:56):
Uh, well I'm of course looking forward to continuing school. I just started my sophomore year at U of O, so continuing to earn my degree. I'm am also starting a position part-time with University Health Services with an organization called Protection Connection that focuses on sexual health and empowerment for students on campus. Getting out resources and information for those topics that can often be very stigmatized and can be difficult to access or difficult to talk about. That topic of sexual health and empowerment is something that's very near and dear to my heart. And I have had a little bit of experience with things like that through my volunteer experience with Planned Parenthood during high school. And so I'm just so excited to be able to continue on with that and hopefully provide sexual and reproductive healthcare in my career in the future as a healthcare provider. And yeah, I think just looking forward and continuing to look for different types of opportunities, both similar to community outreach and public health, like what I've done with Boost Oregon, as well as maybe incorporating other science based experiences like research or clinical experience and things like that. So yeah, I just really look forward to finding whatever else I can.
Ari O’Donovan (29:19):
That's amazing. I really love the path that you're on. I love the places that you have worked with, done volunteer work with, interned with, They're amazing. Sexual health is so important. Sexual education is so important. So I'm glad that you are getting out there and doing that type of work. You will have to keep in touch with me so I can know all that you're doing in the future. I know that you're gonna accomplish all the things that you have in mind. I'm very excited. Thank
Sejal Dubey (29:49):
You. Thank you. I, yes, I definitely look forward to keeping in touch with you and keeping an eye on boost and everything that is going on. I know that there's so many exciting things that y'all have just started, so I look forward to seeing how those grow and, and where the organization goes.
Ari O’Donovan (30:10):
Oh, for sure. We're gonna have a lot of new and amazing stuff. There's gonna be upcoming podcast episodes that I'm very excited about and yeah, don't be a stranger. Keep in touch with us.
Sejal Dubey (30:22):
Awesome. I really would love to.
Ari O’Donovan (30:24):
Wonderful. Thank you for being a guest on boosting our Voices. Sael, it's been so great to talk with you and I look forward to all that you're gonna do in the future.
Sejal Dubey (30:36):
Thank you. Yeah, it's been such a good time working here and talking about my experience and everything. I love Boost Oregon. I'm so glad I found the opportunity to work with y'all. And yeah, like I said, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out in the future cause yeah, just the work that is being done here is amazing and it's so important.
Ari O’Donovan (30:59):
Don't be a stranger. Email us or send us a voice memo at boosting our voices gmail.com with your health related questions. Your questions may even be featured on an upcoming podcast episode. Follow Boost Oregon on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. You can find all of our social media and our website information in the show description below. Until next time, thank you for listening and be well.