CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE

Correlated with the Internship Experience

The Master of Public Health program at the University of Northern Colorado employs a capstone experience option for their students. This experience will incorporate core competencies that can be tied to the internship experience.

 The students who choose to participate in this option must be prepared to incorporate some or all of the course content outlined below during their internship experience.

• CH540 Principles of Health Program Management
• CH550 Environmental Health
• CH560 Scientific Foundations of Health, Promotion and Disease Prevention
• CH620 Epidemiology
• CH625 Public Health Administration and Policy
• CH509 Seminar in Health Behavior
• CH530 Seminal in Health Promotion Strategies
• CH610 Program Planning and Evaluation

The student will need to show proficiency in the following questions. The paper must be between 12-20 typed pages.  The introductory page will include the name of the agency, your supervisors name, the dates of the internship and your general responsibilities.

Please be prepared to address the following questions in your Capstone paper.

1. Based on your internship experience what policy recommendations do you think are appropriate to be considered by the state, county or agency where you had the internship?
2. Based on your internship experience describe any further planning you feel needs to be done, why it needs to be done and how you would recommend going about doing it. Specify planning models you would use and justify their choice.
3. Based on your internship, what epidemiological information do you feel is important to the mission of your agencies. Why and how do you recommend going about getting this information.
4. Based on your internship experience what, if any, health education interventions do you feel would benefit the target population they serve and what theories are relevant to these interventions.
5. Based on your internship are there any relevant environmental factors that can affect the target population your agency serves. Identify these, how they might affect the target population and if and how you feel your agency should advocate for environmental protection of its target population.
6. Based on your internship experience how would you characterize the leadership style you experienced. Why or why not do you think it was effective? What changes would you make in leadership and management and why?

Additionally the student will present their paper/experience to the MPH faculty and MPH students. This presentation will be in power point format to be at least 15 minutes long not to exceed 1 hour.

The faculty and students will then be given the opportunity to ask questions with respect to your experience. It will be during this exchange that the MPH faculty will look at your understanding of core competencies.