Hi! I'm Julia Smith, and I'll be serving as a Health Educator at Heartland Health Centers at Kilmer Elementary School and Sullivan High School. I am originally from Berkeley, CA, and I recently graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where I was pre-med and studied Linguistics. In the future, I plan to attend medical school and become a pediatrician, and to specifically work with populations who face barriers to receiving health care. In college, I volunteered as a Spanish medical interpreter at a clinic that serves low-income patients with limited access to health care. This experience sparked my interest in working to provide high-quality health care to marginalized communities, and especially to Spanish-speaking populations. I have also worked as a tutor, mentor, and camp counselor to young people of all ages in the past, and I am excited to continue to work with children and adolescents in schools during my service year.
Having lived in a rural environment during college, I am excited to move to Chicago and to learn more about health care services in such an urban environment, and specifically within the public school system. Further than that, I am looking forward to working with and getting to know the other NHC members. In my downtime, I enjoy running, reading, learning to cook, spending time with friends, and traveling, and I can't wait to explore all that Chicago has to offer!
This blog post was written by NHC Chicago 2018-19 member Julia Smith.
