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In my opinion and I base it on my 32 years of experience is that a MBA or MS is more powerful than a MPH. How do I know? The govt. accepts the degree as having a full Masters degree...
I interviewed many condidates for govt. jobs and there is a college that educates one for an MPH without the natural prerequisit of having a BS, BA or undergrad degree of any year/s.
Not the school I went to. If I could have gotten away with that I would have saved myself 4 years of undergrad
I don't know about power - as "power" is not what I was looking for in a career path. I think MBAs are great if you're going into business especially private sector, but if you're doing what I'm doing a MBA would be of absolute no use as I'm in a healthcare field. One thing I did notice is that a lot of people I know who have MBAs lost their corporate jobs during the recession. No one that I know who has an MHA (Health Administration) or an MPH (Public Health) lost their jobs. Just food for thought.
To the OP - it all boils down to what you want to do. Do a little research on your dream job then decide what program is best suited for you.
Thanks to you ALL for your feedback. Ok, here is the deal my friends...If I was to work in the government sector, my dream job would be say something like a Program Analyst. In the non government field...my dream job would be to work for the United Way (or some other similar organization) as a manager of grants or community development projects. I worked for the United Way for about 2 years and LOVE THAT ORGANIZATION..right up my ally. So I am now stearing away from the MBA...I talked to another friend with a duel degree in MSW/MPH (something I wish I did) and we both decided that an MBA would confine me to the back office to much...
I think I am going to stay away from the MPA, because I want to do more than just work on policy and with the government.
With that being said, so, with that being said, does an MPH fit my career goals? I think so.
Thanks to you ALL for your feedback. Ok, here is the deal my friends...If I was to work in the government sector, my dream job would be say something like a Program Analyst. In the non government field...my dream job would be to work for the United Way (or some other similar organization) as a manager of grants or community development projects. I worked for the United Way for about 2 years and LOVE THAT ORGANIZATION..right up my ally. So I am now stearing away from the MBA...I talked to another friend with a duel degree in MSW/MPH (something I wish I did) and we both decided that an MBA would confine me to the back office to much...
I think I am going to stay away from the MPA, because I want to do more than just work on policy and with the government.
With that being said, so, with that being said, does an MPH fit my career goals? I think so.
I am not familiar with this field of where, but am familiar with the academic differences between MBA and other programs. The MPA program where I am working on my MBA is more specialized in that you take the majority of your classes in topics that focus purely on management and administration. The MBA curriculum on the other hand is more tools/skill set based; and our coursework spans a wide span of subjects. At my MBA orientation, quite a few future students were kind of balking at our school's requirement to take 6 credits of statistics, even if you had it as an undergrad.
I won't go as far as to say that all MBA programs stress the quantitative side of things like mine does, but they do tend to present the MBA degree as a honing of expertise across a broad range of subjects (I.e. Accounting, finance, operations research, management info. Science, etc.). Yes you can specialize but you still won't get the depth you'll receive in an MPA program!
Like I said before I don't know how this impacts the job search for your field. But I would think that work experience is more important than MBA vs. MPA.
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