American With A UK MSc in International Public Health...Will It Hurt Job Prospects Being Non-CEPH?

[runningupthathill]

I think the title says it all...I'm attending a reputable UK university that is ranked by US News and Reports but not highly so.

I am pursuing this particular degree program because it fits my budget, its short and 100% online with no residency requirements. 

I may work abroad, I may not. I want to know how not having a CEPH-accredited/approved degree will affect my job prospects in the US.

If I will be affected negatively, what can I do to offset the foreign degree? 

Thanks...

[HippoEatingWatermelon]

As long as you can justify that your program was sufficiently rigorous and speak well on what you learned, you shouldn't have too many issues. Particularly with respect to job opportunities. Most public health-related jobs in the US are highly interdisciplinary and are filled with people from varying academic backgrounds. Moreover, despite the central CEPH accreditation, there's still a lot of variety across US public health schools in available concentrations, academic approaches and faculty makeup. If you're aiming to go on to pursue a PhD in a field like Epidemiology (which is probably the most "strict" of the public health disciplines), you could run into a problem or two but really don't think you would face additional problems beyond the ones faced by the standard applicant.

If you're particularly worried, check out this list of CEPH Foundational Competencies to see how your program matches up. You could even send it to your program as I'm sure they've thought a bit about their program curriculum/design with respect to these areas.