Sunday, March 25, 2012
Persons and A Master of Public Health
When it comes to a public health graduate degree, haven’t you decided on which path to take? A number of different programs can be considered by individuals who want to take up a public health masters programs. You might encounter an MS or a master of public health but these two degree programs are not the same.
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. Since public health is the main focus of MPH programs, those who are able to graduate from any of these programs can delve into the public health industry. Depending on what you like, there are different focuses that you can delve into here from health policy and administration to environmental health.
In public health, accomplishing an MPH program will require students to take up various courses in all major areas. Here is where students are required to complete internships or prepare a final thesis before the program can be completed. Something like a Master of Public Health is actually awarded by the Graduate School of Public Health to students who complete the program.
What you have here is a masteral program that accepts students from different undergraduate courses. What you have here are masteral courses that are ideal for undergraduates. There are schools that offer an MPH degree to doctorate degree holders only.
Admission procedures and rates are not standard across all educational facilities. In some educational facilities, the admission rate can be high. 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.
A Master of Public Health degree usually takes two years for full-time study. If you are a working professional armed with a PhD, you can engage in an accelerated program that lasts for 12 months. When it comes to post graduate degrees, not all of these can be shouldered through scholarships 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. Even if you choose to participate in a certain specialization, your coursework will not be limited to that area of expertise. If you engage in a Master of Science in Public Health, you will be able to participate in academic research and still learn through PH courses.
If you want to be a professional in the public health industry, the Master of Science is really not a good degree to consider. It is because this profession requires the interdisciplinary education that only MPH can provide. Dissertations are always part of the game when it comes to this.
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. Usually capped off with a dissertation, the coursework will take about 2 years to complete. When it comes to something like a masters of science degree, this is something that is awarded to a student by the School of Art and Sciences.
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. 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.
Labels:
public health masters programs