Mackenzie Dougherty (MPH ’26) has always gone the extra mile. She started college at 13 through her high school's early middle college program, earned her associate's degree alongside her high school diploma in 2021, and arrived at Michigan State University already knowing she wanted to make a difference in the world through Social Work — she just hadn't quite figured out the full scope of how.
That clarity came during a placement at the Allen Neighborhood Center in Lansing, Michigan, where a conversation with her supervisor planted a seed. "She said it really does seem like you're really interested in macro work, but they also have Public Health, which is very much in your wheelhouse," Mackenzie recalls. She looked into it, discovered she could pursue both an MSW and an MPH through MSU's credit sharing option.
Two Programs, One Purpose
Mackenzie completed her MSW through the advanced standing program in the Organizational Community Leadership (OCL) concentration, which allowed her to apply credits from her Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) at MSU and accelerate her path. Alongside it, she pursued the generalist track in the MPH program. What she found was that the two degrees didn't compete for her attention, instead they reinforced each other. "The projects I was working on for public health, I could apply to my social work classes and vice versa," she says. "I was already doing all the research for one class, so I could just apply it to another."
The conceptual overlap was equally powerful. Her MSW concentration focused on organizational leadership and policy change, while the MPH program kept her grounded in community engagement and population health. "Being able to learn how to talk to the community, figure out what's going on in the community, and get those experiences — and then also apply it to what needs to be changed within policy — I've done a few projects on that and they worked out really great."
Shaped by MSU, Built for Change
Mackenzie's time at MSU was marked by more than academic achievement. She lost her father in 2020 and found herself leaning into MSU as a place of stability and community. Then in February 2023, she was working a shift at the MSU Student Food Bank when the campus shooting occurred. But through those experiences, Mackenzie was encouraged to push forward for change.
"It's just been a lot of really wild experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am today," she reflects. "Being at MSU, learning through the people I've met and the teachers I've had — it's built this resilience. And I just want to make the world better than when I found it."
Putting It into Practice — and Paying It Forward
For her practicum, Mackenzie partnered with the Battle Creek Community Foundation — an organization she has a personal connection with, having received one of their scholarships during her 
undergraduate years at MSU. There, she conducted an equity analysis of the foundation's scholarship portfolio, examining how specific eligibility requirements can unintentionally stack barriers for the very students' scholarships are meant to help. One thing she was proud to do was develop infographics to support food insecurity volunteer training, including a resource built around the USDA's iSpeak card to help volunteers communicate across language barriers.
Mackenzie's final year brought a wave of recognition she hadn't fully anticipated — she was named MSU's National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Student of the Year, nominated for employee of the year, and the recipient of a leadership award. "I really felt seen," she said.
Now entering the public health workforce, Mackenzie's advice to students considering the credit sharing path is simple: build your support system first.
"Make sure you have someone in your corner," she said. "In graduate school, everybody really wants you to succeed. Asking for help is not a weakness." For Mackenzie, public health ultimately comes down to something fundamental. "It's everything," she said. "It's food, it's the air we breathe, the grass we walk on. It's our basic needs."
July 21, 2026