The Cons of A Master of Public Health

Do you not know what programs are available for those who want to earn a public health graduate degree? There are many public health masters programs available, both professional and academic, at master and doctoral levels. In public health, there is an MS option and a master of public health that differ from one another.

When it comes to a Master of Public Health, this is a program that helps students develop the necessary knowledge in the public health field. Public health is an industry that can be delved into by people who are able to graduate from MPH programs as these focus mainly on this industry. Depending on what you like, there are different focuses that you can delve into here from health policy and administration to environmental health.

A couple of core subjects have to be taken by people who engage in MPH degree courses. When it comes to this, all MPH students have to engage in either an internship program, a thesis, or a comprehensive test. Something like a Master of Public Health is actually awarded by the Graduate School of Public Health to students who complete the program.

Most schools accept students who graduated from different undergraduate disciplines. Most of the time, the students that engage in these programs are undergraduates. There are schools that offer an MPH degree to doctorate degree holders only.

The stringency of admission to MPH programs may vary from institution to institution. In general, admission rates range from 35% to 80%. For these kinds of programs, you have to maintain a 50th-percentile on every GRE section and of course possess a 3.0 undergraduate GPA.

For students that will only be focusing on their studies, a Master of Public Health degree can be finished 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. Options for funding normally do not exist when it comes to professional degree programs and the like.

You can resort to a master's of science like MS, MSc, ScM, or MSPH if you are interested in the research aspects of professional careers. 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. The thing about a Master of Science in Public Health is that it focuses mainly on research but several PH courses are included in the program.

You should rethink taking up the Master of Science if your intention is to become a professional in public health. What you have here is a career path that requires you to have the necessary interdisciplinary education. The program normally ends with either a research project or thesis.

Options like academic doctoral programs such as PhD or ScD can be valuable to someone with an MS program in mind as the focus will be somewhat similar. Here, courses will last for 24 months and then you will finish with a thesis. The MS is often conferred by the School of Art and Sciences or any applicable name at universities rather than School of Public Health and hence, the admission requirement will vary than a MPH applicant.

The thing about these courses is that both of them are relevant but MS programs are simply more intense than Master of Public Health programs and the acceptance rate for the former is smaller as well. Even if this is so, variations in admission rates exist. Although it rarely happens, there is still the possibility of an MS student to get something like a training grant from the company that he or she is working for.