Earning your Master’s in Public Health and taking the right classes for an MPH give you the chance to make $50,000 or more after you graduate. Public health workers often work for hospitals, community centers and public health clinics. They help patients understand their risks for developing certain diseases and help them come to grips with a new diagnosis from a doctor. Public health workers may also help those living in a community understand recent diseases and medical conditions affecting that area. Before applying for graduate school, you may want to look at some of the courses offered in these programs.
Core Courses
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, community health workers make a mean annual wage of more than $37,000 a year. The BLS found that the top 10 percent of community health workers make more than $50,000 a year. Before working in the field, you need to take some core courses. Also known as fundamental courses, these classes give you a better understanding of the research methods used by public health workers. Many graduate programs also require that you take two or more statistics classes designed to show students how public health workers gather information about diseases and other medical topics.
Fieldwork and Other Learning Experiences
In addition to the classes for an MPH that you need to take, you can also expect a fieldwork experience or another type of learning experience. While you can learn quite a bit from the time you spend in the classroom, you cannot get hands on learning unless you actually work in the field. Most graduate programs require that you complete at least 100 hours or more of work in the field before leaving with your degree. You’ll work with a professor, who functions as your advisor, to ensure that you keep track of your hours and meet the requirements for graduation.
Concentration Courses
Graduate schools also require that you pick a concentration when earning your MPH. Concentrations are similar to the minors that you pick in college, and you’ll generally only need to take two to three classes in your concentration. Public health biology is one concentration. Designed for those interested in working in the pharmaceutical field, students take classes on epidemiology, infections and diseases and the prevention of certain diseases. If you choose a concentration in psychology or mental health, you’ll take classes designed to teach you more about the most common mental diseases found in the world today and how doctors treat those diseases.
Electives
Finishing an MPH program usually requires that you complete a minimum of 30 credit hours of upper level courses. A portion of those credits must come from your electives. Electives are the classes that you take that do not apply directly to your major. This might include a communications class that you take to improve the way you talk with others or an additional mathematics course that you take prior to taking statistics.
A Master’s in Public Health prepares you to work with larger and smaller groups of people in the public sector. You may work for the state or federal government, or you may work for a community health center or for a hospital. Graduate schools require that students take some specific classes for an MPH before working with the public.