Meet Brooklyn College
Sameen Farooq has seen first hand how devastating lack of access to health care can be. The Macaulay Honors College student had an eye-opening experience when he spent the winter inner-session of his sophomore year in South Africa working in a homeless shelter and AIDS treatment clinic. "It was really shocking to see how people lived," explains Farooq, who did observations at health clinics in the South African municipality of Oudtshoorn in the country's Western Cape. He says that seeing seven-year-olds addicted to sniffing glue and teenage boys reeling from unanesthetized circumcisions helped steel his determination to work in the fields of social medicine and community health. "The community I observed in South Africa had huge problems with infrastructure and resources," says Farooq. "I wanted to look at how those issues impacted the health and health care of the people." "The experience changed the way I view the world and my perception of what I could do in my small way," says the Pakistani native who moved to the United States when he was twelve. Farooq paid for the trip, which he embarked on with just one fellow student, by writing letters to obtain grant money with the assistance of staff members in the Brooklyn College Office of Scholarships, and the Macaulay Honors College. Having observed health care problems abroad, Farooq also chose to delve into issues closer to home when he embarked on a research project with Assistant Professor Jeanne Theoharis, of the political science department. Farooq even presented his research at two undergraduate research conferences on the effect that the activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP, had on the gay community and on American social and political attitudes towards the disease. "I wrote an article for Professor Theoharis' class and next thing you know she became my research advisor," says Farooq, who plans to get an M.D. and possibly a master's in public health and a Ph.D. "That's what I love about Brooklyn College: You get to work with professors who are experts in their fields but who also give you a lot of attention. That's extremely important. They guide you in many ways." Not satisfied with simply having research and international clinical experience on his resume, Farooq has also explored health care from the policy side. During the first part of the summer between his sophomore and junior years, he worked in the office of New York Congressman Gregory Meeks, who represents Queens in the U.S. House of Representatives. "On my first day there, I went straight to the health policy staff," remembers Farooq. "I got to work on important legislation on environmental health and preventative care issues." For the second half of the summer, he got an internship at the American Medical Students Association, where he worked with the national director to design an online scorecard on health care issues for each of the general election presidential candidates. "It was pretty exciting to see my work exhibited at such a high level," Farooq says. Not one to sit still, Farooq's next adventure is an internship with the New York City Department of Health, where he is working on disease control. "It will be an amazing opportunity to look at public health issues," he says. All in all, he says he's had a pretty good ride. "Brooklyn College has been an absolute gift. I've met amazing people. I traveled the world. My peers are amazing," he says. "It's just given me so much." |
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