current students whats the hardest class?

[kauldron26]

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These are the Core classes at MSU

HLTH 501, Public Health Seminar: Foundations, Ethics and Cultural Competency, 3
STAT 500, Introduction to Biostatistics, 3
HLTH 504, Behavioral and Social Science in Health, 3
HLTH 565, Foundations of Epidemiology, 3
HLTH 502, Determinants of Environmental Health, 3
HLTH 580, Health, Policy and Politics, 3


which one was the hardest for you and needed the most work? was epidemiology or biostats hard? if so how hard? which classes were tests, which ones were papers? mind sharing your experiences?

thanks

 

[Stories]

Epi and biostats will have the most work (problem sets) and the concepts are founded in math, so if you have trouble with math that might be tricky for you.

None of the other classes will be tough, no more difficult than your average sociology or political science class (reading based).

 

[honeysuckle]

I already took core SPH classes in epi, biostats and HPM, and epi was by far the hardest class. I absolutely busted my ass studying for the epi class; it was even harder than biostats, I thought. Keep in mind that I have absolutely no math background, though (I'm a behavioral science concentrator!). I managed to get an A in epi, but I spent SO much time on the damn homework figuring out what the hell I was doing.

The HPM core class wasn't hard, it was just boring. Policy and management doesn't interest me, so the hardest part of the HPM class was just trying to read the textbook and do the term paper without either crying or falling asleep 😴

 

[bently]

HPM was the hardest for me and I am an HPM concentrator. I found EPI and BIOSTAT to be relatively easy. I think that it really depends on your undergrad degree. Just do your readings/homework, and you will do just fine. People usually do well in graduate school because they are genuinely interested in the subject.

 

[behealthy]

What's the level of math required in the basic epi/biostats courses? I took a biostats class, and 2 epi classes ( mostly theory) as an u-grad, only required a little bit of algebra. I'm guessing grad stuff needs calc, or no?

 

[bently]

behealthy: At BU, there are no prereq's for Biostat and Epi.

 

[Stories]

What's the level of math required in the basic epi/biostats courses? I took a biostats class, and 2 epi classes ( mostly theory) as an u-grad, only required a little bit of algebra. I'm guessing grad stuff needs calc, or no?

No calculus at all. Really, the tougher parts of of the deeper epi classes is dealing with biases and confounding and what you can do to correct for those issues.

 

[jkmph]

Logistic Regression & Survival Analysis

 

[behealthy]

Ahh, alright. It's not the math then, it's the logic.

 

[Regression]

After working with probability theory in undergrad, you'll think correcting for bias is anything but "logic[al]"

 

[Stories]

After working with probability theory in undergrad, you'll think correcting for bias is anything but "logic[al]"

In the study design phase, of course. Once you have bias in your study, the validity of the study is severely in question.

Confounding is adjusted in your analysis. Anything that's not adjusted for... well, you've got confounded results 🙂

Epidemiology is inferential statistics, not probability mathematics. I know statisticians and mathematicians butt heads all the time over which mind set of reasoning is more fitting, but to each his own.

 

[Regression]

I concede to any statistician when it comes to interpreting results, but people forget to acknowledge what branch of math all these analyses come from 😛 I haven't had real coursework in inferential stats (3 quarters of Econometrics is the closest I have), so I shouldn't really be talking. I will be taking a more intensive stats series next year, though, to prepare myself for Master's coursework.

 

[honeysuckle]

Eh, I'm not capable of joining in the current math-epi debate, but I should add that I found epi to be so hard not because it was advanced math (if it were I'd be completely SOL), but simply that the coursework was very computational. I'm not a numbers-oriented person so I was totally thrown for a loop with understanding and picking among the 20 millions different formulas to use, and then--*gasp*--actually figuring out what to plug into the formulas and rates, etc. And yes, the logic of it all. But that's as articulate as I can be on the matter.