BU School of Medicine Education, Advising & Mentoring in STEM

Every spring, Kilachand offers students the opportunity to develop and lead a global public health course for Boston high school students with the BU School of Medicine Education, Advising, & Mentoring in STEM (BEAMS)

What is BEAMS?

The BU School of Medicine Education, Advising, & Mentoring in STEM (BEAMS) is a youth pathway to health careers program that aims to recruit, develop, and retain underrepresented (URM) youth* from Boston and other areas of Massachusetts in post-secondary STEMM (science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine) education in an ongoing effort to diversify the healthcare workforce.
*racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse youth

To accomplish this, the BEAMS goals are to: 

• Provide career exploration and mentoring in STEMM and healthcare professions for URM students (high-school, undergraduate, and post-graduate).
• Increase the number of URM students entering college and choosing STEMM majors.
• Increase the number of URM individuals in the STEMM and healthcare workforce.

What do Kilachand students do?

Kilachand students explore the relationship between public health issues through experiential and service learning. As part of this experience, students facilitate global health and life skills lessons, while working closely with both the high school students and BEAMS staff and mentors. The collaboration is a unique opportunity to engage with the Boston community while allowing students to connect what they are learning in the Kilachand curriculum to a real-world experience. Kilachand students, alongside the BEAMS high school students, explore global health issues and strategies for how people work to solve these problems, along with life skills lessons to expand their practical application of said issues. The experience centers around questions such as, “How do public health officials tackle these problems?” and “How can someone who is not a medical professional impact our global health?”

What does it look like?

Lessons for BEAMS begin with an overview of global and public health and an introduction to what the high school students know about global health and what they would like to know. Students explore different fields of study – such as environmental science, business, engineering or communications – and how each could work to provide solutions for issues such as clean water or contagious diseases. Students also explore key life skills areas that Kilachand facilitators will walk them through. From the college application process and selecting a college to learning how to speak with professionals, students will build skills that are applicable to their next steps in college and beyond.