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Graduate Studies
MPH and MSPH Curriculum
All degree programs currently require 48 credits of public health coursework. Fifteen of the total credits are completed in public health core courses, 6 in program required courses, 12 in track- required courses, and 6 in elective courses. The remaining 9 credits required for the MPH degree are earned between a field-based practicum, which provides 6 credits, and the culminating Capstone Seminar, which earns 3 credits. The Capstone Seminar requires that a topical research paper is professionally written and then summarized in an oral presentation. In the case of the MSPH, the remaining 9 credits are awarded upon the successful completion and defense of a thesis, acceptable to the student’s Thesis Supervisory Committee. Students in the dual degree programs do not have the option of earning the research MSPH degree and are, therefore, restricted to the professional MPH degree.
The dual DVM/MPH degree program accepts between 10-15 credits from the pre-clinical DVM course sequence, plus 36 credits of coursework in public health, which includes two 1-credit Veterinary Public Health Track Required courses. As with the free-standing degree students, 15 of these credits are completed in public health core courses, 6 in departmental required courses, and 6 in elective courses. DVM/MPH students earn 6 of the remaining 9 credits in a field-based practicum, and the final 3 credits are awarded when a Capstone Paper is written and orally presented as part of the culminating Capstone Seminar.
The dual MD/MPH degree program requires medical students to concentrate in one of the three available public health specialization tracks: Epidemiology, Health Behavior and Policy, or Environmental and Occupational Health. MPH classes are offered in accelerated terms which permit medical students to complete both degrees while only increasing their pre-clinical time commitment by six months. Additionally, they would need to commit some of their two summer vacations to their public health graduate studies.
