Extremely interested in this major and planning to go the pre-med route. I am aspiring for an MD-MPH program post-undergrad. I know that JHU has incredible opportunities in this field particularly, but is Public Health considered as rigorous or cutthroat as the hard science majors? Is it more competitive overall?
Thanks
I just asked a Public Health major, and he said that he wouldn’t consider it to be rigorous. There may be a lot of information to learn, but the workload is generally reasonable. There is the applied experience and requirement of taking some graduate courses at the School of Public Health. But I have many friends majoring in Public Health, and I haven’t heard any complaints from them, except for the odd paper. In fact, many of my friends who were hard-science majors originally switched over to Public Health.
And I don’t really consider any major at Hopkins to be cutthroat; that’s a word that needs to stop getting thrown around in reference to Hopkins, IMO. I also don’t really consider majors to be “competitive,” just because I’m never really conscious of how others around me are doing; I’m just trying to do my best, but that’s just my experience.
Thank you for you valuable insight! Also I appreciate your input on the so-called “competitive” nature some associate with Hopkins, and it’s encouraging to such an honest and non-biased answer. I have seen some of your other posts and I must say you are a great resource for prospective students like me 
If I may ask an additional question regarding pre-med, between biology and chemistry, is one class more rigorous than the other in terms of course load or do they tend to overlap? Trying to get a sense as to what science I should take next year in order to prepare myself, or if I should give up an elective to take both.
From what I’ve heard, the intro Bio classes and intro Chem classes are rigorous in different ways. I didn’t take Bio, but I hear that it’s a lot of work / information, but not necessarily hard. Chemistry isn’t as much work, although the material is more difficult to understand, at least for me. Plus, Hopkins’ General Chemistry labs are, not necessarily hard to do, but the grading is very nitpicky for no reason, lol.
I don’t think it’s so serious that you need to give up an elective. I would just prepare for whichever subject you find more difficult to understand. My required Honors Chem class from 10th grade gave me pretty good prep for Chem 1, so I wasn’t as lost as some people. But if I could’ve gone back and done AP Chem instead of AP Bio, I would have. I think that students who take AP Chem but don’t get a 5 on the exam are best off, because they have the background, but (I’m not completely sure about this) if you get a 5, I believe that you’re expected to take upper-level Chemistry classes. Some friends who have done this tell me that this is not fun.
But I’d definitely have taken AP Physics C over both, lol, because that’s what I really need background in.