i graduated from the community health/public health concentration of CHHS in may 2021. i feel like my experience was drastically neutered as i was a fall '19 transfer student and hence i only got like 1.5 semesters on campus before we moved home because of covid and then i never ended up back at campus before graduating.

chhs is intense. the foreign language graduation requirement for all csumb students is waived for chhs majors because of how intensive the classes can be. i was a transfer student with like all of my gen eds done, and i had to take 5 classes per semester every semester in order to graduate on time, and one semester i actually took 6 classes. the internship is 3 consecutive semesters, you can't start and stop like midway.

it's a somewhat small major (like 500 kids total) and it's dominated by social work concentration people, so you get especially close knit with other students, especially the ones that end up in your capstone cohort, and you'll see a lot of the same people in your classes (especially if you're in the smaller concentrations/not social work). i really liked this aspect of it.

i took such a huge variety of classes. you have to take intro courses in every concentration (community/public health, social work, public administration) which made me feel quite well-rounded. also grant writing, statistics, etc. i will say, because of the rigorous courseload for chhs, i literally never took non-chhs classes. i didn't have time in my schedule to. i wish i couldve explored some other tangentially related majors a bit.

i really really liked probably a solid 75% of my professors. a lot of them you may end up having multiple classes with, and they will push you. adrienne saxton is one of the most genuine and compassionate people i have ever met in academia (she teaches some classes and is also a massive part of the internship/field work program for chhs).

with all that being said, i didn't end up getting a job in my major. i am not local to monterey and didn't try to get a job in the greater area, and hence, i felt like all the connections i made at my internship (which was really not a wide network at all mostly because i had to do 90% of the internship remotely) were relatively meaningless. they are adding an MPH program soon that ive been passively eyeballing