Student Resources

Think about your priorities and the skills you want to develop during your summer field experience. Use this worksheet to guide your thoughts.

For funding consideration, a GFE project must be an applied public health field experience of value to the community and the student.

Identify an opportunity for your global field experience.

Opportunities and ideas are everywhere!

• Research faculty who are active in your areas of interest
• Talk to students and faculty or guest lectures
• View examples of previously funded Global Field Experiences.
• Search RSPH Career Connection for practicum opportunities, seminars, lectures and networking events
• Search the APE Map by Department, Country or Year
• Search international agencies
• Search for ideas and connect with a faculty mentor who will review your application before submitting.

• Watch the Information Session and/or review the slides.
• Prepare your resume or CV
  • If you haven’t taught or published a lot, then you should use a resume. If you have extensive work and academic experience, then a CV is more appropriate. Please plan ahead and meet with a Career Services representative or Career Services Ambassador (peer) for guidance in advance on preparing your résumé or CV.
• Connect with your host organization early and often. Please share this guidebook with your partner site.
  • Make sure you have a local contact that you are working with throughout the project development and that they contribute towards both your project AND supervision during the program.
  • Communicate in advance on project components (e.g., rainy season, dry season, Ramadan, populations at risk, personal and beneficiary risk mitigation, confidential data management, etc.)
  • Be sure that your project contributes to the needs of the organization and is documented in application.
  • Are they able to provide any in-kind support such as subsidizing accommodations (get details!); providing ground transportation; covering the cost of translators or research participant incentives?
  • Make sure you ask whether local/national IRB is required. If so, it will often take a long time. Start early and discuss with your advisors. Don’t expect them to tell you everything you need to know - ASK QUESTIONS and stay in communication.
• Review materials for review by the Institutional Research Board (IRB)
• Schedule your immunizations (do not wait until April as appointments fill very quickly). Find resources below for more information on vaccine requirements and services.
  • Emory Travel Clinic
  • Emory TravelWell Center
• Review visa requirements and travel guidance
  • Emory’s Institute for Global Strategies and Initiatives.
  • U.S. Department of State-Bureau of Consular Affairs
• Learn about safety and evacuation planning
  • Emory International SOS Please Note: this is not the same as travel insurance nor health insurance
• Call your health insurance provider, using the number on the back of your health insurance card, to ask about coverage outside the U.S. You may need to purchase supplemental travel insurance to maintain coverage.
• Anticipate Expenses
  • GFE awards will NOT cover all the cost of your experience. Expenses will vary widely by region. Please review the data presented below from the Summer Field Experience survey of students who completed global field experiences in 2018. The average total cost of a summer field experience was $3,817.
  • Below is a budget report based on data collected from student expenses in 2018*. This information is intended for planning purposes only.

Find a faculty guide in the fall semester if possible – this could be your advisor, a mentor, an APE advisor or someone with expertise in the country, topic or methodology you are proposing.

• Consult with your faculty guide and APE Advisor and the IRB to determine IF your project requires IRB review. Email irb@emory.edu to set up a meeting with an IRB analyst.
  • If Emory IRB review is required, you MUST have Emory IRB approval before conducting any Human Subjects Research that requires review. Emory IRB review can take as little as 2-3 weeks, but will take longer if the submitted protocol is incomplete or unclear as to the procedures and the engagement of Emory or of potential participants.
  • Local IRB review may also be required. Your Field Supervisor will be the best source of information about that. Emory IRB does not require local review unless local laws and regulations require it and does not control how long such a review might take. Where local laws and regulations do not require local IRB review, Emory IRB expects a ‘letter of cultural context’ to be supplied from someone with research experience in that setting who can provide an opinion on the cultural acceptability of the methods on the local context, and especially on the approach to obtaining informed consent of potential research participants. The Emory IRB staff can provide more guidance on who can provide such a letter and what it should contain. Emory IRB will provide a ‘conditional approval’ letter for a local IRB as needed, when the only remaining requirement is local review.
• Repeat this process with your in-country host/field supervisor
• Talk to second year and international students, ask about how they communicated in-country, best data plans, social media taxes, comforts from “home” they had to do without, what they wish they had/had not brought with them

The 2024 Faculty Guide confirmation form should be completed by your faculty guide by February 28, 2024.

The 2024 Global Field Experience Financial Award application for funding should be completed by March 1, 2024. Please keep a copy of your responses and enter them all in one sitting. A PDF version of the application is available for reference

For additional tips from the student perspective see:

• Learn more about the GFE program by reading the following article: "From Albania to Zimbabwe: Surveying 10 Years of Summer Field Experiences at the Rollins School of Public Health"
• Brittany Schriver and Kat Meagley's 2013 presentation, GFE for Dummies: 10 Easy Steps for Mastering your GFE.
• GFE Talks was a speaking platform that existed as an opportunity for GFE-funded students to discuss what made their practicum different, what they did, and what it meant in an innovative Ted Talk-like competition approach. We asked students to think about the story they wanted to tell and how they wanted to share their GFE Experience with the wider Rollins community. View a past GFE Talk here.