Apart from the education degree, public health area broadly needs a few more qualities such as core competencies. National and international organizations make these criteria mandatory when they want to select their team members for a public health project. Some of the basic competencies are; critical thinking/problem solving, oral/written communications, teamwork/collaboration, leadership, professionalism/work ethic etc. Nowadays, we all have a desired academic degree but only the extra qualities would make us standing out from the crowd. When mentoring the young fellows, these are the aptitudes mentors also look for as they want to invest on the dynamic crowd. Research or public health programs always need developing new ideas, curate trendy methodologies and also working under pressure with a sync to the team members to meet the deadline. Like if you are even a PhD holder but do not have the necessary communication skill, networking ability or cannot blend with your colleagues, you might not sustain in a professional set up for long. So, if you are about to start your public health career, please try to exercise these skills from the very beginning. Find out in which aspect you need more work and set your priority. Try to involve in different volunteer opportunities so that you can learn and practice the skills of core competencies. In the long run, these will only support you to thrive in desired career goal.

Dr. Kamrun N Koly (MBBS, MPH, Msc in Global Mental Health)
Founder, BASWOPH
email address: kamnkoly@gmail.com