After Gabriella Quintana graduated from Purdue University in 2018 with a bachelor\u2019s in public health, she moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and started a career in clinic services. A couple years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and her field was thrust into a crisis. Her undergraduate coursework had focused on epidemiology, a branch of health science focused on the distribution and control of disease in communities, so she understood how serious the pandemic was \u2014 and the role public health professionals played in mitigating the crisis. Seeing the pandemic\u2019s effects made her think about her future trajectory in public health and how she could continue to help her city and community prepare for an uncertain future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quintana knew that earning her master\u2019s would help her expand her expertise, learn more about community and family health, and grow in her career. So, she started researching public health master\u2019s programs. She wanted to continue working and living in the Bay Area, and she needed something that would fit within her budget and busy schedule, so she focused her search on online programs. Her mind immediately went to Purdue University\u2019s online Master of Public Health<\/a> (MPH), a virtual program offered by the same department she had earned her undergraduate degree from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI already had a rapport with Purdue, so it made sense to go back,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cThey had the most affordable program that I looked at, and it was fully online, and it had a concentration in family and community health, which fit with what I was interested in at the time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n Learn more about the Master of Public Health Program<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n After researching the program online, Quintana applied and was accepted. She quickly embraced the challenge of online education. It was different than her experience as an on-campus undergraduate student, but it fit perfectly into her busy life and work schedule. One of the highlights of her early experience was meeting other public health professionals from across the country, including a few classmates who were also from California. These connections helped her expand her professional network and learn new things about the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn one of my classes, I had a classmate doing public health work in Santa Barbara, so we would talk about public health policy at the state level and what was going on in California broadly,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cAnd then I had other classmates who were from multiple time zones away, so I got to see public health from all of these perspectives.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n A policy buff, Quintana likes to stay on top of public health policies and advocacy work in her home state and beyond. Through Purdue\u2019s program, she was able to put her policy knowledge to the test by completing hands-on projects. For one of her projects, she collaborated with other classmates from California on creating a health program for California\u2019s Kern County, a relatively rural area known for its agricultural production. The health program her team came up with was aimed at providing pre-natal care for people living in rural areas, and it required Quintana to tap into her existing public health knowledge as well as the expertise of her teammates. Together, they created a project with real-world impact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat course gave me a lot of models and strategies for developing health programs,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cIt was a really cool experience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the course of her program, Quintana worked to develop her leadership skills and soak up as much information as possible. She knew that earning a master\u2019s would open new doors and give her the confidence and skillset she needed to lead her community in times of crisis and create positive change. She has long had a passion for providing healthcare to underserved communities \u2014 it’s a mission she holds close to her heart, and one that kept her motivated while she was working hard on her master\u2019s. Now that she\u2019s graduated, she can see how her hard work has paid off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGraduation was such an exciting feeling,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cIt was hard to believe I was getting my weekends and evenings back, but it eventually hit that I could finally focus on resting and applying my degree.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Quintana is currently working as a program manager in Contra Costa County\u2019s Health Care for the Homeless Program<\/a>. This new role fits her goals perfectly \u2014 she gets to make a difference in the lives of people in her community every day. In the future, she sees herself doing more health program development and leadership while continuing to collaborate with her workplace\u2019s community partners, including the Bay Area Rescue Mission<\/a>, Hijas del Campo<\/a> and the Trinity Center<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe focus Purdue\u2019s program has on community health is incredible and fit with my career goals so well,\u201d Quintana said. \u201cAt Purdue, you do hands-on learning, and that\u2019s exactly what I wanted. Being able to apply what you\u2019ve learned is invaluable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To learn more about Purdue\u2019s online Master of Public Health program, please visit the program\u2019s webpage<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After Gabriella Quintana graduated from Purdue University in 2018 with a bachelor\u2019s in public health, she moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and started a career in clinic services. A couple years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and her field was thrust into a crisis. Her undergraduate coursework had focused on epidemiology, a branch of health science focused on the distribution and control of disease in communities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"area-of-study":[12],"person":[74],"class_list":["post-6206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-success","area-of-study-health-human-sciences","person-students"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story-300x300.jpeg",300,300,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false],"rt_custom":["https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Story.jpeg",800,800,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"RM Barton","author_link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/author\/barton53\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Student Success<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"After Gabriella Quintana graduated from Purdue University in 2018 with a bachelor\u2019s in public health, she moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and started a career in clinic services. A couple years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and her field was thrust into a crisis. Her undergraduate coursework had focused on epidemiology, a…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6649,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6206\/revisions\/6649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6206"},{"taxonomy":"area-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/area-of-study?post=6206"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=6206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}