aglaya

Hi All, Heads up: this post has a ton of questions! I was wondering what advice you would had for someone who has international development experience and a humanities background. I'm considering an MPH to further/change my career path, but I'm not sure if I am competitive to even apply for online or part-time programs. Background: BA in history, Russian from University of Wisconsin -- coursework in women's health and the history of public health. Overall GPA was 3.828 Masters in Russian and Eurasian Studies from Georgetown -- coursework in demography in Russia and Eurasia, and wrote my capstone on social factors leading to the rise of MDR TB in Russia. Overall GPA was 3.715. GRE: V: 690 (old version)/165 Q: 750 (old version)/ 159 Professionally, I work at an international development consultancy that contracts with USAID, and I've got experience in program management, budgeting, evaluation, and proposal writing. I'm currently on an HIV/AIDS proposal, and I've been able to travel abroad to do recruiting for it. My goal is to ultimately move from being an operations/program manager to more of a technical advisor, and I believe I would need to get an MPH to do so. I'm interested in staying in international development, and have the management background to support a career in development. With regard to going back to school, I'm not financially stable enough to drop everything and go back to school full time, so I'm considering online/part-time programs. I've been doing research on the LSHTM's distance program along with other part-time programs, and I'm currently learning towards LSHTM's distance program because of how affordable it is. My main questions are: 1. Have any of you heard of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Distance Program and have any comments on it? 2. For those of you who work full time and did an MPH, how did you get around the practicum requirement? 3. Is there anyone out there with a similar background to mine that did an MPH to futher/change their careers? Many thanks in advance for your insights and comments!

Georgetown just sent out emails! Accepted into CERES

To the Russian ETAs: Does anyone want to email Oksana or Rachel and find out when we're hearing about our placement? It's kind of bothering me that other countries have heard back so quickly, and we haven't heard anything. I don't want to email them because I've pestered them a bunch already...

I would also like to know. I'm sitting on pins and needles.

I guess this is a dumb question, but would they email us if something was wrong with our form? I'm just overly anxious, because the General practitioner that I saw mixed up the abnormal and normal columns and used a ton of white out...and I'm worried that they'll think that the form is inaccurate or something and revoke my grant.

That's what I did -- I sent the form in on April 19th, and it was received the 20th. They haven't sent me anything back yet or emailed me notifying me that something was messed up...so I think that's okay.

Question about the medical clearance. I emailed Rachel and asked if we would get notification of our medical clearances, and she said that we wouldn't. So does that mean we'll only know if we weren't cleared? So no news is good news? I hate not having answers.

To the Russia ETAs out there: Anyone willing to email Rachel to find out when we will find out about placement? I've emailed both Oksana and Rachel, only to get evasive answers. From what Oksana told me, the Moscow office is determining final placements, but she didn't answer whether or not we would hear via email from her or from the New York office. I feel like they're getting fed up with me (hell, I would be fed up with myself, too!) So...anyone want to ask how we'll find out and when?

To the Russia ETAers: We should find out about our placements soon, hopefully this week or next week! This is what Oksana sent me: I asked her if we would receive notification of placement via email, but she didn't respond.

You should probably email Rachel, then. She would know better than any of us.

This is from the orientation handbook (found on the fulbright website). It sounds like they'll pay for housing...

Hopefully we'll find that out when we find out about where we are placed.

Do you know if we'll be finding that out via email or mail? Ahh, why is everything so SLOW? I googled blogs for the current ETAs in Russia, and some of them were in: Petrazavodsk Tomsk Novosibirsk Kareliya Kaluga Pushchino As long as they don't send me to the Magadan area, I'll be perfectly happy.

No, nothing yet. I emailed Oksana, since placements are done in Moscow but no word yet. Anyone want to email Rachel? I feel bad because I have been bombarding her with emails!

To all the ETAs out there: Do you know when we will find out where exactly we will be teaching?