What makes an Epidemiology (MPH) curriculum?

[VCUram]

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Hi SDN'ers,

I'm curious, what does the "Epi" portion of your MPH program consist of? I keep reading threads that mention epidemiology as the most marketable part of the MPH degree, or at least when someone asks about concentrations, there are always several posters to emphasize epidemiology above all others -- So what is it? What is the root of this skill set--the most valuable classes ("Intro to Epi Methods", "Biostatistical Computing", etc.)? What makes an epidemiology curriculum uniquely valuable as compared to any other?

Just browsing for opinions, anecdotes...

Thanks,

 

[Stories]

Well.. it really varies depending on what you want. Do you want training to do epidemiological investigations (outbreak investigation) or are you interested in disease etiology (academic research). There are schools which generally focus on one or the other. Usually, the "big name" schools focus more on the latter.

 

[VCUram]

Thanks Stories-- What was your specific concentration in Epidemiology and what courses/skills do you find invaluable?

I'm on the academic research side, an RA not currently in grad school per say, but taking courses at will (They're a job benefit), and finding a lot of use from training in R/SAS, really just data management skills.

So, the subtext: I'm applying to a general MPH program. The school formerly had track specific training, but has collapsed all of this into a general track in the last year (fully accredited). There is some freedom in choosing electives for this program and I'd like to focus on epi skill sets that people find to be "marketable" or useful in the applied sense (I realize that it could all be applied in the right situation, but, say, a top 3 list?).

Really though, I'd be curious to see how different people in different situations think about their favorite, most marketable, or useful classes. So, open thread. Top 3 classes/skills in the epidemiology subset?

 

[Stories]

I don't know much about how someone with a general MPH versus one with a specially tailored one would fair, but the most useful/broadly marketable skills is data analysis and management simply because it can be suited for a plethora of jobs out there.

Since I'm a researcher, I utilize nearly all of my epidemiology training from study design and implementation to data analysis and grant writing. The one unfortunate thing about epi is that because it's such a broad area, you really do need to specialize your skills (or get enough experience in everything) to really say you're qualified to be in a position, which ever direct that is.

So if you want to work at a pharma company, do as much pharma stuff as you can.
If you want to do outbreak investigation, do stuff in vector and outbreak epi.
If you want to do cancer research, take as much cancer epi and molecular methods as you can.
etc.