juilletmercredi

I don't have a MacBook, but I was going to get one so I researched them, and specs are specs. Personally I'm a tech geek and I like to max out my specs, but unless you are planning to do some hardcore gaming what's going to drive the speed of your computer will primarily be memory (RAM), not the processor clock speed. If you can afford it I'd go with the 2.7 GHz, because like someone said it's more "future-proof." But if you are trying to save money, that'd probably be what I'd sacrifice. My Toshiba has 500 GB of hard drive space. I think about half of it is full. 250 GB wouldn't have been enough for me - I have an external HDD filled up that's that capacity - but I like to store movies and stuff on it. I would recommend at least 320 GB and 4 GB RAM. Don't they all come with backlit keyboards now? Those are nice. I have one on my Toshiba and I'm surprised at how much it actually makes a difference, especially on airplanes. Also, while I would recommend a MacBook Pro over a Windows machine if you have the dough...there's nothing really wrong with Windows 7. People say it sucks, but honestly I have had few problems with the OS besides the annoying UAC. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination; I would say Mac OS X is great. I would say Windows 7 is meh. But *shrugs* it's whatever. Now Windows Vista, THAT sucked. My Toshiba was a lot cheaper than the Mac and it has better specs, but it also doesn't have a fancy aluminum unibody (I'm not scoffing - my computer is built like a tank but I pay dearly for it in weight. The unibody would make it just as sturdy, but lighter) and the integration that the MacBooks have. I would've gotten the MacBook Pro if not for the price.

I 100% agree with this. ISince I am going to have this 'albatross' around my neck, I just want assurance that they will have my back and not we'll have your back most likely. I don't think this is the way it works at all. In all honesty, it's probably closer to the opposite - if they funded others but not you, that means they feel they are taking a gamble on you and basically aren't willing to take the financial risk on you. If you leave after the first or second year, the department has lost very little money on you - just overhead costs, but not the cost of paying your tuition and a living stipend. Even if you do well, you've already proven to them that you are willing to attend the school on your own dime, so like someone else said new fellowships are (counterintuitively) given to students who had fellowships first. And the thing is, right now they aren't guaranteeing anything. If they were guaranteeing you at the moment that you'll be funded next year it'd be understandable, but I would definitely NOT fund myself for the first year with no guarantee for the second year. What happens if you get through year one - at a school that costs $30K in tuition and fees and you have to borrow living expenses, so let's say $50K total and that's lowballing - and then they're like sorry, we can't fund you for year two? Either you leave $50K in debt for basically nothing, or you have to go ahead and incur six-figure debt for a degree that won't pay you that much until you're about 15 years into the career (assuming that you even GET a t-t position - and it doesn't bode well. The market's already bad, and your own program didn't want you enough to fund you). I don't think relying on IBR is a good idea, either - I've heard people say this kind of thing multiple times since the program started. IBR was NOT intended for students to go borrowing money they can't really afford. The point was to provide some relief to people who are already deep in debt. If you are already planning to apply to other programs that will fund you, what is the point of wasting $50K+ at a PhD program with the likelihood that you will have to start over if you get funded at a better program? I think it would be far better to take a year off, work some more, beef up your math if that's what's lacking by taking some math classes at a local U and try applying again. I just don't think that the career is worth going to *any* place. If you want to be a professor, you want to maximize your chances by going to the *best* place for you.

I took notes in class most days with a computer. Most of my seminar style classes didn't require notes, and when they did I brought a paper notebook because staring over a computer screen doesn't foster discussion (and no one else had a computer). For my lecture classes, I brought my laptop, and then I bought a netbook and I would bring that. The laptop is far more convenient as far as organizing notes goes - I never have to worry about bringing the wrong one to class. As far as apps, Evernote is a good app. I highly recommend Microsoft OneNote but only for the computer itself. The app requires you to link it to a Live! account, which if you don't have one, kind of sucks because you have to create one. Evernote doesn't make you do that afaik. OneNote is great because if you have a tablet netbook, you can write equations and draw pictures into OneNote. It also has drawing tools support so I sometimes drew diagrams with that (I usually drew it into a little notebook first, and then reproduced it in OneNote later. It's set up so you can create a different notebook for each class and then a different "page" for each day, so I just numbered mine by the days and then kept them all in one tab. You can also record your class right into the application and have a link to the recording embedded in your notes for that day.

Most graduate students don't mind hosting a prospective on their couch for a few days. That's how I went to visit my current school, so I'm always into paying it forward, and everyone else knows what a struggle it can be for a student to find a place to stay especially in expensive cities. I contacted my departmental secretary and asked her if she knew of any students that would host me. She then forwarded my email to the entire department of students. Within a day I had two students volunteer to host me and another one volunteer to give me a tour, and on top of that, one of the women who hosted me became a close friend.

I'm in the social sciences and I did study abroad in undergrad. That was my first time out of the country ever, and I would've loved to study abroad again in my PhD program, but my research is domestic (and I would like it to stay that way) and I don't have any pressing language needs, plus the language that would be most useful for me to learn in the context of my research - Spanish - has plentiful opportunities to learn here and practically no funding for studying it abroad. I even live in a Spanish-speaking enclave of a city. Given all of this, I have basically given up on trying to study abroad during grad school. The only other option was doing an Minority International Research Training program, but a lot of these programs have gotten funding cut recently, in addition to the fact that most of them are institutionally limited or only take on 2-3 grad students (who usually have international research interests). I applied to one for Ghana that's solidly within my research area of interest, but I didn't get it and I suspect that the 3 graduate students they did choose not only have research interests like mine but ALSO are specifically interested in African countries. That's why I always tell people that if they really want to do international travel or live abroad, and don't have international research interests, to do that before graduate school. My one big regret is that I didn't chase that Fulbright ETA or Watson fellowship that I wanted to try and went straight to grad school instead. Not that I won't have the chance to travel after the PhD, but you're no longer eligible for those programs and it's a bit harder if you're trying to get tenure to go live somewhere else.

My undergrad environment was kind of dressy. I went to a women's college, and we weren't allowed to wear pajamas and slippers to class or any public spaces on campus outside of our dorms. I mean, people wore sweatpants and sweatshirts sometimes - especially for those 8 am classes - but by 10 am most people were dressed at least in jeans and T-shirts. Me personally, I don't wear T-shirts out of my house unless I'm going to the grocery store or doing laundry or something. I also tend not to wear sneakers. But clothes are my grad school splurge; I like dressing up and wearing makeup (which, by the way, only takes about 5-10 minutes for a natural non-fussy look). So I tend to wear nicer clothes - a button up, nice cardigan, or some otherwise dressier-looking shirt, dark-wash jeans, and some dressy flats or wedges when I'm in class or meeting with an advisor or a participant for our studies. I'm usually dressier than the other students though, because I get comments on my clothes from my classmates quite frequently I haven't led any lectures (our TAships are pretty low key unless you have a stats or experimental class) but next year when I teach stats labs, I suppose I'll take it a step up and wear some slacks and a button down with those dress flats. For conferences I usually wear business casual. It's interesting to see field differences at conferences, though - when I go to public health conferences I'm in the land of the Birkenstock-wearing, "khakis count as dressy" professors. But at psychological conferences people tend to dress up more and even wear suits sometimes. I'll also admit that there's a racial aspect. I'm a black woman and I went to a women's HBC. There I was taught (and I think there's empirical evidence for this) that black people have to look a tad dressier than their white counterparts to be considered the same. I've also noticed that the very few black professors at my grad institution tend to be dressier than their white counterparts. Although I think I'd still want to dress up even if I weren't black because I love clothes and makeup...it's still something I'm cognizant of.

I'm not sure it works like that, that they'll give it to someone this late in the game because you declined, but hopefully it does! The Nordic Research Opportunity is the "new" research opportunity that replaces the international travel. They sent an email around about it last year to all the fellows - that instead of a $1,000 international travel allowance, fellows could apply for a $5,000 NRO if they're doing Nordic research. It's kind of limited, but them's the breaks. I don't know about a whole stipend, but I know at my university they pay you at the same rate that they pay students on departmental funding who take on an extra TA assignment. We're required to do 1 per year, and people who do 1 per semester get paid an extra $3,000 for that class. So you can make $3,000 per semester.

I'm not sure it works like that, that they'll give it to someone this late in the game because you declined, but hopefully it does! The Nordic Research Opportunity is the "new" research opportunity that replaces the international travel. They sent an email around about it last year to all the fellows - that instead of a $1,000 international travel allowance, fellows could apply for a $5,000 NRO if they're doing Nordic research. It's kind of limited, but them's the breaks. I don't know about a whole stipend, but I know at my university they pay you at the same rate that they pay students on departmental funding who take on an extra TA assignment. We're required to do 1 per year, and people who do 1 per semester get paid an extra $3,000 for that class. So you can make $3,000 per semester.

Honestly the articulation is more important than anything else - I had a low undergrad GPA (3.4) but I was a second-year when I got the award, so I had my grad school GPA to bolster that. Nothing really besides that and the strength of my essays changed between the year I applied and didn't get it and the year I did. None of my negative comments were on my background; they were on my research proposal. (All of the positive comments were on my research proposal, too, lol). And when did they stop using the GRE? They used it when I applied in 2009-2010. To elaborate on your first question...if you're planning on applying for NSF for entry into grad school Fall 2012, then you most certainly should be thinking ahead to plan for projects. The most important part of your application is your research proposal, and students with tightly-written proposals are the ones who win the GRF. It's more difficult for college seniors to write such a proposal than grad students, but I think they take that into account. In any case, the earlier you start the more you can start looking through the literature, putting it together, so when you get back to college in the fall you can start shopping it around for comments. My first year I started writing the proposal in late August. My second year I started a little later - maybe the beginning to middle of September - but I had been working on my project idea for the better part of a year already so writing it was easier than starting from scratch like I did my first year.

First - you already have an MBA. Are you sure that you need an MPA? I have a friend who just completed an MPA and she said that it's very similar to an MBA; the focus is simply on nonprofits and public institutions. Perhaps there's a graduate certificate you can get that will get you to the same goals without taking up a whole other master's program that's similar to the one you've already got. With that said, the GRE is required by most MPA programs - some may take the GMAT in lieu of the GRE, but I've yet to run across an MPA program that absolutely requires it and not the GRE. (I'm casually browsing MPA programs myself, as I intend to add it to my PhD down the road). I don't think you have a "one in a million chance" of getting in because of your background. The MPA is largely a career-changing degree. There are lots of programs (like Princeton's) that are tailored towards people in the sciences who want to do public policy work now. MPA students come from very diverse backgrounds; not all of them majored in the social sciences. If you plan on attending an MPA program in Fall 2012, it's true that most of your deadlines will be between December and March. But you have plenty of time before December to begin writing and editing your statements. I didn't start writing my statement of purpose until around August of the year I applied to my PhD programs, and I know many people who started a little later. You've got 6 months of lead time, so start around the middle to the end of the summer and you should be fine. I can't speak directly to the quant question, but I will say that my friend's background was in psychology and her quant background was weaker than mine - she had one undergrad stats class in psychology. She did fine; she just graduated. Most of her classes were not quantitative and econ driven - she wanted to do policy work and so she focused on the more policy-driven courses.

A lot of people in both my departments live together, but that's because we don't spend a lot of class time together. In my primary department, it's an interdisciplinary program, with people splitting their time 50% at the main campus in a social science and the other 50% uptown at the medical center campus taking public health courses. With that said, there usually aren't more than 2 people in the same cohort in the same social science department, and they usually don't have the same research interests, which means they aren't really taking the same classes. And downtown, my psych program is a general one with three different subfields - cognitive, social, or neuroscience. So students within the program would live with each other (sometimes different cohorts), but necessarily someone in your lab, and you'd probably not see them that often in the department with the exception of first-year seminar and maybe passing in the hallways. You might actually spend less time with your cohort than you actually think. If I lived with a cohort mate now I'd probably only see them at home, and if we had moved together my first year, we probably just would've seen each other at the I lived with master's students my first three years here (one for two years, one for 10 months.) Now I'm subletting my extra room to a recent graduate doing an internship until the end of August. I'm moving into a studio in early August to take a residence life position with my university, and my lease is up August 31. Although I generally have liked all of my roommates, I'm kind of over it myself, and I'm looking forward to living alone.

My family flip-flopped. I was the first person in my family to go to college (extended and nuclear) and so even that was a bit of a deal. My parents are religious conservatives who believe that your life should be focused on evangelism, and that work should simply be something that supports that, so you should just go do whatever vocational program can make you some money. I grew up not ever believing I was going to go to college, and didn't even start thinking about it until junior year of high school. When I did go both of them complained that 4 years was "too long" for college and worried that I would turn into a heathen staying on campus, although both of them changed their tune while I was at college and both commented on how it helped me grow. Needless to say when I announced I was going to a PhD program there were mixed feelings. I'm at an Ivy League program and they were very proud and bragged for the name recognition, but they were uncertain about me going to a 5 year program - I was straight out of undergrad, and even to them finishing at ~27 seemed "too old." My mom worried about when I was going to have children. But they've been generally supportive for the last three years, and when I considered leaving earlier in the semester, they actually encouraged me to stay and finish the program because they could see my passion for it even if I was depressed right then. And my mom has brightened by feeding me the line that I could just have a first child at around 28 and then a second one at 30 and everything will be all right. (Not gonna happen, but I'll let her believe.)

I had about $11K from undergrad; I picked up another ~$12.5K from my PhD program, and I don't anticipate borrowing any more (I have a fellowship now and a variety of positions that should preclude that). So total I have a little less than $25K. It's all federal; the undergrad debt is unsubsidized and the grad debt is subsidized. The money I borrowed at this PhD program was, like hejduk, to pay for moving costs and partially to subsidize my fellowship in a high COL place (although the fellowship I got for years 3-5 is more prestigious it's actually less money and is taxed higher). As a note, the income-contingent repayment plan is actually over 25 years (10 years for public service) and the percentage of your income is based upon how much you make. It's not always a flat 15%; it can be as high as 20%. Same with income-based repayment; it's over 25 years and the percentage can range from 0% to 12.5%. And these programs are only for federal debt. Also, this A word of advice: If you need a loan co-signer, have it be someone who will die soon after you leave college. I'm totally serious - private loans often require a co-signer and if that co-signer dies in repayment, those loans will get forgiven. Is not true at all. Co-signers are merely the guarantor on your loan; as the borrower, YOU are the holder of the loan and you are responsible for paying off the loan fully even if your co-signer dies.

I'm a very extroverted person and I'm still pretty lonely in grad school. I mean, I have some friends in my cohort. We're all busy with different schedules, and since we've passed our quals there's a lot less hang time together. I still get together with people from my cohort fairly often (1-2 times a month), but meeting people who aren't grad students is difficult and I've tried different things (joining a social sports group, volunteering at community orgs, etc.) Grad students are varying levels of nerdy, it really just depends. There are some nerdy people in my program; I've bonded over shoe shopping and makeup with others; and we have a group that gets together to play poker and some grad students who started a knitting circule. It just depends. Me personally, when I am winding down from work I don't want to talk about work, so I don't post articles to my academic journals on my blogs. I do come here, though. I don't think responsiveness is a decreasing function of age. First of all, I think people become more settled into their identities as they age and are less interested in impressing other people. Secondly, I think people who are in their mid to late 20s just have far more social commitments. Some of them already have established groups of friends; many are married and some have children. My cohort are awesome people and I love to be with them, but a lot of them have partners and we're all just busy, so sometimes everyone can't come hang out. If you want to have friends you can plan ahead and explore your city to see what kind of resources there are, and then hit them up. Volunteer, play a sport, find a community center to hang around, whatever. It is difficult, not going to lie, but grad school is only for so long and IMO it's kind of worth it for a few years.

I'm not in your field at all, but honestly it will probably depend on whether you intend to stay in England/Europe or want to expand your job search globally. Assuming that the funding is similar, LSE (like you said) has a better international reputation and honestly an international development degree sounds more broadly useful than a war studies degree. Why are you applying for the job, and why have you deferred your admission to the other programs? Was it a tactic to wait on the LSE acceptance? If you know that you want the PhD, unless this job at Columbia is a lifelong dream of yours I would just get started in the fall.

First I will say that 35 is definitely not too old to go for a doctorate. There were several people in my cohort and in the ones before and after be that began their program in their mid-30s. If you take 6 years to finish, you'll be 41 with at least another 24 years of your career ahead of you. But my question is - do you need a master's in sociology to do what you want to do? Look at the people who work at nonprofts you admire. Do they have master's degrees? I do know that most research jobs I have seen require a master's + experience, but it depends on the level at which you plan on getting involved. The other thing is that you do you have to go to NYU? Can you go to a public university in the state you are a resident in and get a master's in education or sociology? When you say your undergrad is in a "completely unrelated" field, what do you mean? It might be more economically prudent to take some prerequsite classes in sociology at your local public and then apply to the doctoral program (although I think an MA may be useful in that you might decide that you don't need a doctoral degree to do what you want to do in your nonprofit and/or research work).

Is this MSc funded? I'm in a related field, and getting a master's is relatively pointless since working as a research assistant/associate or lab tech for a few years will yield better results and get you paid at the same time. The name of your master's university will matter somewhat, but what matters more is that you are doing research and getting excellent references - building a case for yourself as a doctoral student. If you are an outstanding student coming from York won't hurt you that much unless the program has a negative reputation.

I'm not sure I really understand, but it seems like you got accepted to a PhD program and are expected to pay the first years' tuition yourself (and likely the following 4+ years' too). I definitely would not do this. The return on a PhD isn't enough to justify laying out six figure debt for.

I'm assuming that that the research fit and funding situations at these two schools are similar (bc my first inclination is follow the money). Given that, then School A sounds better. Yes, it may take you 2 extra years to finish, but chances are higher that you'll get an academic position from this well-established program.

S.O. is military, which adds a whole other level of stress to this game. (Luckily he's stationed 80 miles south of me...for now)

Link is broke for me, far_to_go. I have a lot of bags. On a daily basis I carry a tote bag because I'm a little fashion-obsessed, and I don't usually carry my laptop. (It does fit my netbook). It's this one but in blue and I didn't pay that much for it. When I have my laptop I use a bookbag and don't care if I feel and look like a high school kid. It's this one. Although I regret the color choice (it's a loud pink, neon green, white and black plaid that *really* screams high school - I got it when I was 22 straight out of undergrad, lol), it's very durable and the padding on the bag helps when I'm lugging my computer. I have chronic back pain so this is a good thing.

Michigan has this somewhat unique program that allows their grad students to get graduate certificates in a variety of fields. Among other things, they have grad certificates in African American and Diaspora Studies; Asian Studies (China, South Asian, and Southeast Asian); Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Latina/o Studies; LGBTQ Studies; Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies; and Women's Studies. Not quite the same as a joint program, but it will give you the opportunity combine study.

There's a difference between "prestigious v. mediocre" and "LAC vs. university". You've raised both here. First things first: follow the money. Unless the difference isn't that large and you can comfortably afford the more expensive school, choose the one at which you have the most financial aid/is the cheapest. I don't see the point of going into big debt for undergrad. That said, in the LAC vs. university debate, both schools have their pros and cons. I am undoubtedly biased: I got my BA at a small LAC (not elite, but not mediocre either - it's in the middle of the top 100, and I was definitely in the top 5% of admitted students there) and am now getting my PhD at a large Ivy League university that has far more graduate students than undergrads. I'm not impressed with undergraduate education here so much. Being intimately acquainted with the professors in the department, I know that many of them (won't say most) aren't as...invested in undergrad education. It's not that they don't care; they just don't have the time, since their tenure and promotion relies on their research output and as one bluntly put it to me, "Teaching takes away time from research." I will also say that the teachers here are on average not as good as my LAC teachers, and another colleague who came from my undergrad has said the same. However, that's only comparing two isolated institutions, and is not necessarily true of LACs and universities as a whole. Most of the pros for either has a counterpoint from the other. Universities may have more prestigious professors, but chances are you the undergrad won't work directly with them and LACs offer the opportunity for closer interaction with professors. Universities may have more cutting edge and better funded research but LACs will offer you a greater role in the research that you do because LAC professors don't have grad students and postdocs to do the heavy duty stuff. LACs may have smaller, more intimate classes but universities usually have a wider range and more offerings. LACs offer an intimate environment but research universities usually have better resources. And so forth. Ultimately, it depends on you and your personal preference. Personally, I loved the intimate atmosphere at my LAC: it prepared me for serious one-on-one work with my advisors here, and since my professors at my LAC treated me like a junior colleague I was used to that treatment when I got here. Since in a 20-person class it's obvious that you're missing, I was used to notifying professors when I would be gone for class. I was used to professors knowing my name and all my business. Funnily enough, despite a large university being a closer environment to where I am now, I feel like LAC-land was the best prep. If you are more motivated to find your own opportunities and push yourself, and you want a challenging environment (as far as go-getter wise, not prestige-wise), a bigger university may be the way to go. If you don't want everyone in the department to know all your business, bigger uni may be the way to go. (I had people I didn't know that well walking up to me and asking me to tutor them on the GRE three days after I took it. I told some friends my score and they told some friends and well, when you go to a school with 2300 women, everyone knows you through someone else.) Do realize that you can get the best of both worlds; my small LAC was in a big city with a lot of other unis nearby: a prestigious public technical university, a flagship state university campus, and a top 20 private university, as well as some other smaller schools. Many of my friends did research at those campuses with better-known professors. Also, if you live in a city with a lot of universities chances are there are cross-registration agreements, so even if Tiny LAC doesn't offer Psychology of the People of That Obscure Mountainous Region, you may be able to take it at Big U. And vice versa - if a tiny LAC doesn't appeal to you you can take more intimate classes at the tiny LAC in your college town if there is one, plus most big universities' upper level classes are smaller. As to mediocre vs. prestigious...since I already wrote a book I'll just say this. Prestige does matter, all other things being equal. People respond to me a little differently when I tell them the name of my doctoral institution. (Or a lot differently, in one amusing anecdote.) However, I enjoyed being a big fish in a relatively small pond at my LAC. Doesn't mean my colleagues weren't motivated - lots of us ended up on Wall Street, in top law and medical and grad schools, TfA, whatever. But knowing I was hot shit at my LAC gave me this insufferable confidence that has served me well in grad school ;D For some people this backfires though - they are so used to being the big fish that when they get to the ocean, they get intimidated at the first sign of not being the biggest fish in the pond.

1. It is indeed true that most doctoral students in public health have MPH degrees (or some kind of master's). In fact, a lot of PhD and DrPH programs in public health require MPHs or another master's before admitting you. However, some don't. I went straight from undergrad into my program, but I am the only person in my cohort who did that. There's also only one person in the cohort behind me that did the same. I think there's value in getting an MPH first, but in my experience, as a doctoral student you'll be required to take most of the courses an MPH student would take anyway. As a doctoral student with no MPH, I've had to take biostats, epidemiology, medical sociology, history of public health, etc. I had to take 30 credits in PH. I did avoid taking environmental health sciences and health policy in management, but you have the option to take those classes if you want. (I do regret not taking the HPM course.) It also hasn't increased my time-to-degree much over the MA holders. MPH holders generally can waive two semesters, but they still have to take 30 credits of coursework. That means coursework + comps should take you 2.5 years and then you have however long to finish your dissertation. I had to take 60 credits of coursework because I didn't have a master's, but that only adds a year onto my degree progression. So I essentially saved myself a year (and about $100K). Since you already have an MSN I think you should apply straight to PhD or DrPH programs, if you know you want a PhD. Only two people in my cohort actually had an MPH; 2 others (besides me) had a master's in something else and 1 didn't have a master's at all but a lot of work experience. 2. Depends on the school. My best friend in my cohort is a DrPH student, but she is definitely not more practice-oriented. (In fact, she's more research-oriented than I am!) And the DrPH program here (Columbia) is not more practice-oriented at all. In fact, you usually have to ask people "Are you PhD or DrPH?" This isn't true everywhere - Emory, for example, clearly states that their DrPH is a practice-oriented program. I don't think there are any jobs you can get with a DrPH that you can't get with a PhD, but because the DrPH is newer and people perceive it as a PhD, the same may not be true the other way. I know my program has no problem hiring DrPH graduates as professors here (although all of our DrPH professors have come from our own program IIRC). I think a PhD is safer for right now, but as my generation moves into the upper echelons that will probably change. 3. Depends on who you ask, which is going to be a function of where they are in the field. Being younger - both chronologically and in the field - I would say that a DrPH is just as valuable as a PhD. That has to do with my experiences - many of my professors have DrPH and their research seems to be just as cutting-edge as my professors with PhDs. They bring in grants and you generally wouldn't know what degree they had unless you looked at their CV. Other programs that have more practice-oriented DrPH programs, or none at all, may not respect DrPHs who try to come into academia. On the flip side, DrPHs that come from programs that are more practice-oriented may not have strong research skills. In the industry, I'm not sure they make that distinction as much. I also think that an MPH + experience is preferable to a DrPH if you have to pay for the DrPH out of pocket. Most of the jobs I've perused in departments of health or the government or industry require a doctoral degree OR a master's + 2-3 years of experience. 4. I had to do a PhD because I had no master's. I have yet to find a DrPH program that didn't require an MPH. False. Most of the MPH students here at Columbia DO NOT have MDs and are not residents. We do have a few medical students and MD holders who are getting their MPHs, but they are by no means the majority. That's also true at HSPH, and although I can't speak to JHU and Berkeley, I also don't think MDs are the majority there either. I also would not say that the quality of education is poor here at all, and I have friends who got their MHS at JHU and they say that it's not poor there either. I do agree that I believe a master's degree in a statistics or science program would be more beneficial than an MPH, though. Unless you get an MPH in biostats or epi. But nursing IS a science field and an MSN would definitely help you get into a PhD program in public health (not to mention that you *could* work part-time as a nurse to supplement your stipend in grad school...heh) But a master's level nurse with an MPH in biostatistics or epi is like a double-threat.

It depends on what you want to do. If academia is your goal - teaching in a school of public health or a related department - CEPH accreditation isn't going to matter, since most faculty in PH actually don't have PH degrees. What's going to matter is your research and publications. If your department is well-respected, you'll be fine - but most well-respect public health schools are CEPH-accredited. If you want to work within the public health field non-academically, then I wouldn't go to a non CEPH-accredited school. (And even in the former case, there's no guarantees on academic jobs so I wouldn't go to a non-CEPH-accredited school anyway.)