Planning & Preparing for Your Practicum Search.

Where to begin?

Just like with any job search, it’s never good to go into a practicum search without a plan. Preparing for your practicum search will help make the process of finding a practicum go much smoother. It’s important to think about your practicum as a way to develop essential public health skills. Going into your searching knowing what skills you are targeting will make it much easier to identify opportunities to apply to.

Identifying these skills is always easy, as you may not know where to begin. We suggest following the checklist below to best prepare.

Practicum Preparation Checklist

1. Understand Practicum Requirements: Be sure to familiarize yourself with the requirements of the practicum before doing anything.
2. Prepare Your Materials: Having a strong resume and cover letter is critical to your practicum search. The earlier you strengthen your materials the better. Make sure your resume is formatted correctly and contains only helpful & relevant information. Make sure you understand the point of a cover letter and how to write a compelling one that is tailored to the organization you are applying to. The Career & Practicum Office offers resume & cover letter reviews by emailing your materials to sphcareeroffice@bu.edu OR by drop-in during designated times in Talbot 2 East; be sure to include a job description with your cover letters.
3. Meet With An Advisor: You are not in your search alone. The Career & Practicum Office offers certificate-based advising for both careers and practicum. You are encouraged to reach out and meet with an advisor during all phases of your practicum search, especially in the early stages. Make appointments with an advisor using Handshake.
4. Attend An Event: The Career & Practicum Office offers a wide range of events for in-person students — employer information sessions, career & practicum panels, career & practicum fairs, and working sessions where you can work on your materials with an advisor present. It’s a great idea to attend events to take full advantage of the support services offered.
5. Identify Desired Skills: It’s important to identify some, not all, of the skills you’d like to try and develop during your practicum. The skills you build in your practicum will be a critical component to your post-grad job search. These skills should be relevant to the work you’d like to be doing after graduation.
6. Identify Interests: While it’s important to be open-minded to the roles you apply for, it’s still important to know what areas of public health interest you. Using both skills and interests areas as search keywords will help you identify a wider range of opportunities to apply for.
7. Explore the Past Practicum Database: All practicum starting between calendar year 2017 and August 2023 are archived into our past practicum database, which student can use to research opportunities that may be available, connect with past students, or even connect with host organizations to see if any projects currently exist. The past practicum database is one of the most robust and important tools you can use and is a critical step in familiarizing yourself with the type of practicum students with your certificate and/or interests have done in the past. Any practicum that stars from September 2023 on will be archived in the past practicum search in the Practicum Portal.