Should I go straight for my MPH?

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arterm1s

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Hi, I'm an undergraduate majoring in public health. I am a rising senior. I recently switched my major to public health in my junior year of college. Currently, I have no internship experience within public health. Should I go straight for my MPH after undergrad? I'm interested in going into biostatistics which requires an MPH. Or, should I gain internship experience/working experience before going for my MPH in biostatistics?

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There is another option besides MPH. You could do an MS in biostats. It may even be the better option since you don't have to take the core MPH courses or do a practicum, so you get more biostats training that way. The advisers in our department recommend the MS over the MPH for recent graduates who want to go into biostats. You can still go straight into the MPH program though if that's what you want; you just might get a lot of people trying to get you to go the MS route.
 
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There is another option besides MPH. You could do an MS in biostats. It may even be the better option since you don't have to take the core MPH courses or do a practicum, so you get more biostats training that way. The advisers in our department recommend the MS over the MPH for recent graduates who want to go into biostats. You can still go straight into the MPH program though if that's what you want; you just might get a lot of people trying to get you to go the MS route.

Can I apply to an MS program in biostats with my degree in public health? It seems that applicants who apply for the program have a background that's heavy in math or they have majored in statistics. I have not taken much math nor calc. Also, is there an advantage over MS then MPH? I hear both are good to go into biostats.

I've taken probability and statistics in college
 
About that I have no idea. Your best bet it to contact admissions for MS programs to see what the requirements are, and maybe to talk to faculty to see which degree they recommend.
 
Plenty of people go straight into a MPH program from undergrad. So if that's what you truly want, go for it!
That's the thing, I'm only interested in it based on my opinion in class and my interest. But I do not really have hands-on experience in analyzing data. Is the conventional way for most applicants would be going straight for MPH?
 
That's the thing, I'm only interested in it based on my opinion in class and my interest. But I do not really have hands-on experience in analyzing data. Is the conventional way for most applicants would be going straight for MPH?

There's a decent amount of open source data analysis tools you can get your hands out (R is a prime example) and using publicly available data (e.g. NHANES, SEER), you can play around with it and see if it's something that might of interest.
 
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