06/29/15: Health Realities in Border Populations Class Day 1
Today is finally the first official day of one of my core courses, GH391: Health realities in Border Populations! The day started off with a lecture by Dr. Marc. He covered topics such as the currently accepted definition of “Health”, what determine health, scope in addressing health, some border area dynamics, and border health (since our class will be focusing on the health of people along the Thai-Myanmar border). It was really interesting to be introduced to all these topics, but as a person who is totally new in this field, I honestly felt that it was a lot to take in at first. However, a lot of these topics are something that can be applied in everyday life, so it made more and more sense as it went on. In the end of the class, I definitely learned a lot, especially how health is directly involved with politics. Dr. Marc even mentioned at the end that “Health is political”.
For lunch, the staffs at Thammasat let us order the food we wanted from a list. I ordered “Tom Yum fried rice with pork”. It was not bad! After lunch, we had a completely different kind of class, called Design Lab. I initially had no idea what it would be like! It turned out to be a social innovative class where they taught us the process of creative problem solving skill called “Human-centered design”. I learned that this process put the people you’re designing for at the center, by actually going into the field and asking them what their needs are, what are already in place and what can be improved, and then develop some solutions based on their inputs. I believe that this process will be very effective and am really excited to learn more about it!
In the evening, I went to a market on campus and bought a lot of food! I bought pork on sticks, sticky rice, crispy fish salad (MY FAVORITE!) and green tea with honey. I really love my life on campus here.
