Sheridan Nygaard

Sure.

I mean, I have a lot of big feelings, if I'm being honest.

I'm graduating with my master's in the next three weeks here that I've been working on for a while.

I lost my grandma during COVID.

I was in grad school at that time.

That's what kind of inspired me to start grad school.

So it's been four years part time while I work full time in research and I do health chatter, which I love doing all these activities so much.

But now I'm looking at a new stage in my life where I'm excited to start applying for jobs.

There's no public health jobs out there right now.

It's a hiring freeze or hiring cool in most federal agencies, in a lot of research hospitals, in a lot of research centers, in a lot of nonprofits, for-profits.

Everybody's struggling.

Nobody knows what's going on.

It's really that uncertainty that we talked about.

And

I'm a really driven person.

I'm really excited to take on more responsibility and take on a new title, but it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen for me in this climate, which is obviously a personal concern.

On a broader scale, I worry about the disintegration of

the systems that support health and community and the impacts on health that that will have.

And certain communities are obviously feeling this more.

I'm a really big social justice advocate and seeing human rights be violated, not only do I worry for their health, it just really hurts my heart seeing human beings not be treated like human beings.