The College of Population Health’s BSPH Capstone provides real-world training for burgeoning population health practitioners. Fieldwork is a valuable opportunity for students to gain experience in a professional population health setting, develop networking skills, and prepare for employment upon graduation. While students are encouraged to participate in field experience opportunities throughout their studies, earning credit for the Capstone requirement is generally limited to senior year. This allows for more integration of classroom learning during the Capstone.
Students must apply to the Capstone prior to the semester they anticipate completing fieldwork. The college has preexisting relationships with many fieldwork sites, and the Capstone Director provides guidance during the process of securing a position. Ultimately, it’s up to students to network with professionals, find sites that offer work of interest to them, and have their plans approved by the Director. BSPH graduates have completed their fieldwork in a variety of professional settings, including health departments, research centers, hospitals, clinics, media, and nonprofits.
Hours
During the BSPH Capstone, students earn credits through PH 475, a class that supports an intensive internship at a population or public health venue. The one credit class requires weekly class meetings between faculty and students, while additional projects (final fieldwork portfolios and presentations) and homework (weekly logs, discussion board participation, readings) are completed outside of class. The remaining five credit hours translate to 225 fieldwork hours. A minimum of 160 hours must be spent working with the selected site. The remaining 65 hours can be spent with the site, or on related activities, as approved by the instructor. Students are required to document all hours and activities in their weekly logs.
Grading
The Capstone is graded as credit/no credit which, means pass/fail—no letter grades are assigned. In order to pass the class, a student must participate in class discussions, complete all assignments, complete and document 225 hours of fieldwork, and receive satisfactory evaluations from their site supervisor and instructor.
Prerequisites
In order to take the class, students must apply to the Capstone, be in their final semester of COPH coursework, and have secured an approved fieldwork site and supervisor before the semester of the anticipated fieldwork.
Students must fill out a preliminary application in order to register for PH 475 and receive a list of potential placement sites. The deadline for the application is May 1 for a fall semester Capstone, and November 15 for a spring semester Capstone. However, students are encouraged to begin the planning process and submit applications well in advance of these deadlines.
Applications to take PH 475 are distributed to current BSPH students via BSPH listserv several times each semester.
Before the Capstone semester begins, and after submission of the class application, students must: 1) secure an approved fieldwork site and supervisor, and 2) submit all planning paperwork. Students who do not meet these requirements must take PH 475 another semester. It is the student's responsibility to secure a site, but the fieldwork program team is available to provide support in the planning process.
Despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, our Spring 2020 Capstone students completed over 5000 hours in community work for their field experience.
Students learned from and contributed to population health efforts when they were needed the most.
