Advice from current MPH's on GRAs

[katethekitcat]

Hi current MPH students,

 

I'm REALLY hoping to get a GRA my second year in my MPH program. I'm already going into massive debt, and a tuition waiver would be quite nice. However, I'm aware it's incredibly competitive, especially since in my program the PhD students are interviewing for the same GRA positions.

 

Keeping that in mind: do you have any advice for securing a GRA? Obviously doing well in the class is important, but lots of people will do well in the class. Are there stats programs you'd suggest learning beforehand? Any other advice/tips/suggestions?

[niihla08]

Hi current MPH students,

 

I'm REALLY hoping to get a GRA my second year in my MPH program. I'm already going into massive debt, and a tuition waiver would be quite nice. However, I'm aware it's incredibly competitive, especially since in my program the PhD students are interviewing for the same GRA positions.

 

Keeping that in mind: do you have any advice for securing a GRA? Obviously doing well in the class is important, but lots of people will do well in the class. Are there stats programs you'd suggest learning beforehand? Any other advice/tips/suggestions?

 

It REALLY depends on where you are going. I know getting a TA position is really easy at Michigan and getting RA position  is really easy at Berkeley (where I am going). UCLA and UW, not as easy. I talked to a lot of current students while making my decision to get an idea of how easy it is at each of these schools to get this sort of position since i don't want to be in debt when i graduate. That's why I chose Berkeley! My current roommate did hers at Michigan and got both years tuition waived+stipend by being a TA for an undergrad bio class. 

 

Email any and all professors with research that you're interested in to see if they have funding for an RA position. Even if they don't at the moment, they will keep you in mind when they do if they know you have interest. In addition, talk to your program director of your interest and they may be able to let you know of any professors/positions coming up. 

Edited April 3, 2014 by niihla08

[juilletmercredi]

Really, you need to get to know a professor who is doing some research that is interesting to you or that you at least can work on.  The best way to secure a GRAship is to form a close relationship with a professor who ends up needing a GRA, or who knows another professor friend who needs a GRA.  You want to be top of mind when he recommends an MPH student to his friends, because in my department one of the ways MPH students get GRAs is by getting recommended or by personal network, not necessarily a job posting.

 

Another thing to do is keep your eyes open for postings at other schools.  My university is in a city with many other hospitals and universities, and so some of the students here work at Hunter, Einstein, and Mount Sinai, for example.  Of course, you won't get the tuition waiver, but it's better than nothing.

 

As for skills to learn, any statistical package is good but the best to learn is probably SAS, followed by SPSS.  A lot of social science public health professors are still using SPSS.  I see very few advertisements for R, probably because they don't expect you to know it.  You also want to emphasize any project management or administrative experience you've had before - even if you worked in admin office in undergrad sorting mail, that's still administrative.  Most of the time when professors want a GRA, they either want someone who can run analyses and do other research tasks (like literature searches), OR they want someone who can do admin work - or a little of both.  If you're going to a school that has a lot of qual researchers, knowledge and experience with qual techniques (semi-structured interviews especially) is really useful.