Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Dealing with A Master of Public Health

Are you confused when it comes to viable options for a public health graduate degree? For people who want to work in the public health industry someday, there are different degree courses that can be considered. Two kinds of degrees can be obtained in this field namely an MS in public health or a master of public health.

The thing about a Master of Public Health is that this is a degree course that teaches students about the general concepts of public health. In general, graduates from MPH programs can choose an area of concentration in one of the areas of public health, which is the focus of the coursework. When it comes to this, you can choose to specialize in areas like occupational health, epidemiology, or community health if you prefer.

There are several courses that have to be completed by the student when it comes to MPH degree programs. In this case, graduating from the course means that you have to engage in fieldwork or prepare a thesis to serve as your culminating requirement. Something like a Master of Public Health is actually awarded by the Graduate School of Public Health to students who complete the program.

This is the kind of program that will normally accept you regardless of your undergraduate course. Here, most course enrollees are all undergraduates. Having a doctorate degree can ensure that you will get to participate in an MPH degree program.

The stringency of admission to MPH programs may vary from institution to institution. Mid ranged admission rates apply to certain institutions. It is tremendously important for a 50th-percentile on every GRE section to be obtained by all MPH students and a 3.0 GPA is also mandatory.

If you will be studying as a full time student, you can complete a Master of Public Health degree in two years. If you are a working professional armed with a PhD, you can engage in an accelerated program that lasts for 12 months. Similar to most professional degree programs, students are normally not accommodated with considerable grant or scholarship options to fund their education.

As a professional, if you are considering research efforts, you should think about an MS, MSc, ScM, or MSPH which are all master's of science degrees. Here is where you need to select a particular discipline but you have the option of doing coursework that is outside of your chosen discipline. Although the Master of Science in Public Health degree involves PH courses, it is still first and foremost a research endeavor.

If you take the Master of Science, this will not really prepare you for a career in the public health industry. What you have here is a career path that requires you to have the necessary interdisciplinary education. Dissertations are always part of the game when it comes to this.

If you will be engaging in an MS program, it will be best if you also considered taking academic doctoral programs such as PhD or ScD as the coursework will be similar. Here, you will study for 24 months and then the program will be completed after you present your thesis. For a masters of science degree, it is the School of Art and Sciences that grants the credentials to graduates.

In general, applying to MS programs is more difficult and competitive than to Master of Public Health programs because of the smaller accepted class sizes and the critical individual attention on MS students during defense phase and thesis. The acceptance rate still varies from school to school. When it comes to MS degrees, a student can get the necessary funding from his or her home company under what is called a training grant.



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