Preparing a Confident Workforce: Starting Courses with a Meet-and-Greet

These are some of the questions I hear every semester from incoming students once they find out they must enroll in Introduction to Biostatistics. I hear similar concerns from master’s biostatistics students preparing for the theory-heavy estimation and hypothesis testing course.

What is striking is not that students are anxious, but that their anxiety arrives even before the first week of class. Anxiety sets in the moment they find out that the biostatistics core course is a requirement for their MPH or MS program. By the time they walk into class, many are already convinced that biostatistics is difficult and they will struggle. If this anxiety goes unaddressed, it has profound consequences not just for course performance, but also for the confidence and competencies students require to succeed in the public health profession.

The Hidden Cost of Fear

Training in biostatistics is critical for public health practice. It forms the foundation of evidence-based research, study design, data management, data visualization, and data analysis skills that define our field. But biostatistics carries a reputation as scary, difficult, boring, overwhelming, or weed out. Students internalize these labels, which can create significant barriers to engagement right from the outset and adversely impact their workforce readiness.

Fear of biostatistics manifests in various subtle but consequential ways: silence during classroom discussions; reluctance to ask questions; resistance to collaborate in group activities; procrastination; and missing classes. Together, these adversely impact the achievement of key competencies such as interpreting data, communicating findings, and collaborating with peers. Fear is not simply an emotional feeling that students experience. It has direct implications for their workforce preparedness. The skills we want students to develop are compromised when fear dominates their early engagement in the class.

A Pre-Course Meet-and-Greet Session

Several years ago, I began hosting a meet-and-greet session for students enrolled in my biostatistics class each semester. I host the session a few days before classes begin. This session is not a class or a lecture. Instead, it is an intentional strategy to ensure students are emotionally and cognitively ready to engage in the course. During the session, I do the following:

• Explain the course structure, objectives, and practical relevance of the course content. This helps students understand how classroom activities translate into skills they will need as public health professionals.
• Clarify how students can succeed in the course through consistent engagement, following instructions, active participation in class materials, and forming collaborative study groups, all of which mirror real-world public health work.
• Emphasize that some materials can be challenging but are navigable through time management, task management, and study plans. This frames challenges with course materials as skill-building opportunities, rather than a path to failure.
• Explain that fear and anxiety are normal, not a sign of weakness, and invite students to share their concerns and questions.

The primary goal of the meet-and-greet session is to create and ensure psychological safety of the students, boost their confidence, and enhance their learning experience and performance in both academic and professional settings. I do not camouflage expectations, do not issue warnings or threats, and do not imply that fear is evidence of lack of readiness for the course or the master’s program.

To supplement the meet-and-greet session, I also create a pre-class discussion board within the course’s online learning management system. In this space, I briefly introduction myself, including my interests outside of biostatistics, and invite students to introduce themselves, as well. This discussion board helps allay fears associated with the instructor-student hierarchy by allowing students to see my human side and making them more comfortable approaching me with questions, both inside and outside the classroom.

Allaying Fear Enhances Workforce Readiness

Allaying student fear does not imply rigor is compromised or course standards are lowered. Instead, it strengthens student preparation and allows them to engage deeply and comprehensively with foundational materials. Addressing fear at the outset helps students approach the course with confidence and clarity. It equips them with the following vital soft skills and core competencies essential for impactful public health:

• Data literacy: manage, interpret, and analyze data accurately
• Critical thinking: apply quantitative reasoning to real-world public health problems to develop innovative solutions
• Collaboration: engage in discussions; share insights; learn; and work effectively with peers, colleagues from various disciplines, and community partners
• Communication: share findings effectively using tables, figures, and written summaries
• Emotional intelligence: be self-aware, manage relationships, and prioritize tasks even under pressure
• Adaptability: adjust to the need of the hour, such as shifting needs or public health emergencies

Impact of the Meet-and-Greet Sessions

Over the past several semesters, I have noticed consistent changes when students participate in the meet-and-greet sessions. Students tend to ask questions earlier and with greater confidence. Class discussions are more participatory and collaborative. There is higher engagement with in-class problem-solving activities. Students show more curiosity about diverse approaches to data visualization, analysis, and communication. They arrive better prepared and engage in substantive discussions with each other before, during, and after classes. Students persist more actively when engaging in difficult topics.

Overall, these positive changes are early indicators of workforce preparedness. Students who enter the professional field with the ability to analyze data, communicate, collaborate, adapt, and think critically are better positioned to meet the demands of the public health profession.

I do not claim a causal effect of meet-and-greet sessions on these positive changes. Rather, I draw on student feedback indicating that these sessions boost their confidence in their quantitative abilities early in the course and motivate their active engagement throughout the semester.

Broader Implications

Although I have developed the meet-and-greet sessions for biostatistics courses, this principle is broadly applicable to other public health courses. When getting ready for a semester, we typically share the course syllabus with students and prepare for the semester by focusing on content delivery and assignment design. The pre-class meet-and-greet sessions serve as an emotional onboarding process to ensure students begin courses with confidence, are supported, and are ready to engage consistently throughout the semester. Such emotional onboarding is critical for predicting and addressing fear and for creating an environment in which students succeed both academically and professionally.

Concluding Remarks

A course does not begin solely on the first day of classes. For students, a course begins in their minds, and their confidence and interest in engaging in the course is shaped by their past experiences and expectations and the reputation of the course topic.

Fear of a course is often predictable and addressable. I have used meet-and-greet sessions as an intervention strategy to normalize fear and address it early on before students arrive for their first class. Such efforts to allay fear may be small in scale but can be substantial in impact. Students who enter the course with confidence and clarity that challenges are part of the learning process are better prepared to acquire the competencies critical for succeeding academically and, most importantly, for succeeding as public health professionals.

I conclude by inviting my peers to share their thoughts on this question: How can we help students discard their fear of statistics/biostatistics and intentionally prepare them to not just survive a course but also to thrive as professionals?