I'm curious to know what are your thoughts from your experience at Yale and Columbia?
When I was at Columbia for its open house, I really did not like it. Everything about Mailman was not entirely up to my expectations, but in retrospect, I realized that it wasn't fair to compare my Mailman open house experience with the individual attention I had received at UMich the week before, since it wasn't the UMich open house that I had gone to. It was really like comparing apples and oranges.
After I came home, I mostly tried to forget everything that ppl have said about the schools, and focus on my primary needs for my MPH education. What do I want to learn and why? I realized that I'm completely committed to field work, versus research, because I honestly cannot see myself in academia for more than three years, and I am a project-oriented and product-oriented individual. So I made a list of things I'd want out of my MPH program, and to my surprise, Columbia's Health Promotion fit my requirements perfectly.
Then I visited Yale. By then I had pretty much already decided on Columbia. Yale threw me off slightly, because even though it wasn't their official open house day, still a couple students showed up and the admissions director organized for us a smaller version of the open house. I met some of my potential fellow students and really liked the group. Plus everyone there was so nice and accommodating, esp the admin (a word about profs: don't assume that Yale profs are more likely to cater to your interests, be more free to meet with you, etc. The reality is that profs will always be busy people. The bigger their names, the busier they will be. This is true across all academic institutions, including Yale). I wasn't surprised that Yale's program is more research-oriented. Due to the small SBS faculty, this was somewhat of an issue for me since I wasn't completely excited about any of their research, although I could probably work with it for two years, but two years max. I particularly could not see myself doing PhD at Yale. The "Yale bubble" feel was significant to me, as was the huge income disparity between Yale and its surrounding community. It still puzzles me how Yale could've existed for so long yet have had so little economic influence on New Haven. I felt that working on my own abstract ideas for my thesis (I know pretty much what I'd want to do and it has very little to do with the local community) would be wasting my personal potential to really make a difference in someone else's life.
Career services ppl at Yale were both very nice. Like many have said before, they knew many past students by name, and could tell you off the top of their heads where they did their internship and where they are now. They also organize periodic "tours" to NYC, etc to check out potential employers. I thought that was really awesome. I think no matter which school you pick, you'll without a doubt land a good job if you put in the work. I did ask them about what % of students go on to med school, law school, etc, and the number I got did not fit with my personal impression of the % of Yale MPH students going into med. It seemed a lot lower than what I feel is the actual number, but that's just my personal opinion. When inquired, they were also more hesitant to say how many MPH students from Yale end up doing research, or work as research assistants (versus actual public health jobs).
Anyway, then they brought out the whole "you can take any courses you want at Yale" thing, but also, the fact that for your thesis, you must have 2 readers, the first a faculty w/ appointment at YSPH, but the 2nd could be from anywhere at Yale or even another school. This impressed me a LOT. There are essentially no boundaries to the Yale MPH program, IF you want to do research. This is so different from Columbia's Health Promotion, where you basically take the courses they tell you to take, and are done with it. At first I found Columbia's way a bit rigid...and that intimidated me because as North Americans we grew up being taught that the more choices the better. But then I realized that I really don't want to do anything else. I just want to do health promotion. While I can probably rig up a cool thesis at Yale, that's not really why I decided to go into public health to begin with. I want to actually learn how to design interventions, and know what kind of theories would inform a good program design versus a bad one. I want to know how to best implement these interventions, evaluate them, etc. and immerse myself in the local community and understand them. What could be better than to have ppl with distinguished field experience teaching you how to do this? And to have so many part-time job opportunities to apply your course knowledge to hands-on practice? Research is definitely important, but I imagine there are people who are way more suited for it than I could ever be. The Yale public health program also struck me as not so "public health" but more "clinical health", which is not surprising since they're so closely affiliated with the school of medicine. I've done cancer research myself, so it's not entirely unfamiliar to me, this "chronic disease epi" orientation, but its application scope seems a bit limited, especially versus Columbia's whole "ecological framework" dogma.
What else...
Coming from Toronto, I do love big cities. I felt kind of suffocated when I was in New Haven, even though the Yale campus was absolutely stunning. NYC has so much to offer anybody who decides to go there (a no-brainer) and even though by not going to Yale, I wouldn't get the type of unique educational exposure that Yalies usually receive by just being a part of Yale (i.e. guest lecturers, etc) I feel that just the NYC atmosphere is highly conducive to creative, interdisciplinary thinking. Even though the Earth Institute, for example, is not on the CUMC campus, I don't see what's preventing any of us from accessing its talks and resources. Courses are definitely the central focus of education, but at the end of the day, it's what you put into designing your own experience that matters most, regardless of where you go to school.
If you have any specific questions, definitely feel free to ask or PM me! I honestly think that in 10 years' time, we're all going to look back and think "God, I can't believe I got so worked up about that silly decision".
I think as long as you gather enough reasons to back up a choice, you can always call up these reasons whenever you feel unsure about your decision, even after you start your MPH.
