1. Learning Journey: How has your understanding of health sciences evolved from the beginning of your time in the program to now? What key concepts, skills, or experiences have been most transformative for you? 

• ​At the beginning of my time in this course, my understanding of health sciences was relatively basic and I mainly associated it with the general concepts of health and disease. However, as I progressed throughout this course, my perspective evolved significantly. I now understand  how important different fields within health sciences are such as public health, epidemiology, healthcare systems, and even social determinants of health.

• Key concepts, skills, or experiences that have been most transformative for me are learning about the social determinants of health opened my eyes to how factors like income, education, environment, and access to care shape health outcomes.

2. Skill Development: How have you developed as a communicator, problem solver, and innovator during your time in the program? Give examples. In what ways has this course challenged your thinking, helped you develop new competencies, or changed your approach to healthcare and health-related issues?

• ​During my time in this course I have developed as a communicator, problem solver, and innovator all by completing each part of the group projects. Being in these group projects helped me communicate with my group and come up with a plan together to complete each assignment. 

• This course has challenged my thinking in a couple of different ways. The main way it challenged my thinking was completing a project on a topic I did not know much about beforehand. This challenged my thinking because I had to do research to learn more about my topic in order to do my assignments. 

3. Challenges and Triumphs: Reflect on any challenges you encountered during the course, such as research hurdles, practical applications, or balancing coursework with personal commitments. How did you overcome these obstacles? What did you learn from them?

• Challenges I encountered during this course were all of the group assignments because I like getting ahead on assignments instead of stressing about them the closer they are due, and that is extremely difficult with group work. To overcome these obstacles I did what I could in order to get ahead for my group. I would look ahead at assignments and set everything up for my group that way it was easier for them to complete the part they needed to for each assignment. 

• What I learned from this is even though I may not get ahead in my assignments, I still have plenty of time to complete them well and I can count on people even if I don't think I can. Groupwork has always been difficult for me, but this course has shown me that it can be done as long as people are willing to work and communicate. 

4. Impact on Career Goals: How has this capstone experience influenced your career aspirations in the health sciences field? Have any new career pathways or interests emerged during the course?

• This capstone experience influenced my career aspirations in the health sciences field because even though I still plan on being an Occupational Therapist, I now want to make a difference in healthcare. I will do this by advocating for my patients and treating them with the best quality of care possible.

• No new career pathways or interests emerged during this course, but I am doing an Occupational Therapist / Physical Therapist Internship and I am excited to learn both sides of therapy. My main focus is occupational therapy, but I think it will be very interesting to see just how similar and different occupational therapy and physical therapy are. 

5. Future Application: How do you plan to apply the knowledge and skills you gained during your time in this program and in this course in particular in your future professional life? What steps will you take to continue your growth and development in the health sciences?

• I plan to apply the knowledge and skills I gained during my time in this program and course by taking what I have learned about access to and quality of healthcare and advocating for it in my future healthcare career. This program has really opened up my eyes to how much this is an issue all around the world, and I am hoping I can make a real difference. 

• Steps I will take to continue my growth and development in health sciences are keeping myself updated on current health related. issues and staying up to date with what is going on in healthcare by continuing to research this topic snd learn more on my own.