<p>I am a freshman in college and I got a D in Calculus, but was able to score A's in my other classes. I was a Biochemistry major at first than switched to Public Health so Calculus is not necessary for my new major. I only stuck to it since I did not want to have low credit hours. I think I am pretty smart and hardworking so I know I can improve my GPA to at least to 3.5 by the end of undergrad. I did not take Calculus in high school so I came into the class confused and Math is my weakest subject. Will this D affect my chances into getting into a Public Health Master's program (Top 10 program). I already satisfied qualitative requirement with AP Macroeconomics for my major if this affects anything.</p>
<p>Will it effect it? Yes, in at least some sense. Is it going to keep you out of it? It’s far too early in your undergraduate career to even speculate. You may want to retake it for a better grade. Most schools do specifically require a college level math course, so that’s something to look into. </p>
<p>I disagree with comfortablycurt as a current MPH student in a top 3 program. I know lots of people that were rocky in one area or another. </p>
<p>MPH degrees are NOT like MS/MA/etc degrees. They are professional rather than academic degrees. You want to show that you are committed to becoming a professional public health official rather than showing a tip-top GPA/test scores. </p>
<p>What type of MPH program do you want to pursue? Epid? Health Behavior? Etc? In epid, it’s going to be more of an issue than if you want to go into a behavioral track. </p>
<p>The best thing you can do is get some public health experience under your belt before applying. That can be an immense range of things- for example, mine was working in a domestic violence shelter. </p>
<p>Btw, I was admitted to several epid programs including Columbia’s despite not taking a single semester of math in college. </p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes I am thinking of going into either epidemiology, health management, or public/global health policy(this is preferred). When do you think is the best time to find internships during college?</p>
<p>After your sophomore year generally. It doesn’t have to be an internship. In fact, preferably, it would be a job that you keep for at least a year or two.</p>
<p>If you want to work in global health, it is CRITICAL that you learn a second (or even third) language. Depending on where you want to work, German and French are both pretty good. Spanish if you want to work in Spanish-speaking countries but German is pretty crucial for international health work. </p>
<p>That is a wide array of programs, which is fine, but are all going to look for a slightly different skill set. I got into U of M’s Health Management & Policy program but chose HBHE because I liked the health behavior aspect better. </p>
<p>You’re probably going to want to look at Emory or Michigan for global health work. Those should be your two big aims. I got into the Global Health track at Emory (reproductive health) but couldn’t go due to finances. </p>
<p>I perhaps should have worded that more carefully. </p>
<p>Is this D going to effect it? Any grade that one gets is going to have some kind of an impact on their chances at grad school. This is going to vary significantly from field to field though. If one is applying to grad school for physics or math, then it’s going to have more of an impact because it’s going to pull down your major specific GPA. If one is applying to grad school as a history major, it’s not going to be very relevant. </p>
<p>It’s far too early in your undergraduate career to really speculate about your chances for grad school. It’s obviously important to keep it in mind, but grad schools are going to look more closely at the courses that are directly relevant to your field. The physics major applying to grad school isn’t going to have their chances significantly impacted by getting a C in a history class, just like a history major isn’t going to have their chances significantly impacted by a C in the physics class they took as a physical science course. </p>
<p>On the whole, I wouldn’t really worry about it too much. It’s a course that isn’t relevant to your major, and isn’t required for your degree. </p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification comfortablycurt. And romanigypsyeyes, I am happy you brought up the languages because I am torn between German, French, and Spanish. I did not enjoy Spanish in high school so I will probably choose German since WHO headquarters are in Switzerland.</p>
<p>The WHO headquarters are in Geneva, where the main language spoken is French. @romanigypsyeyes I am curious why German is such an important language in this field?</p>
<p>Many grad programs will look at both your overall GPA and your GPA for the last two years. They recognize that the transition to college isn’t always easy and will discount the first year if everything is strong after that. </p>
<p>@InfoQuestMom - My suggestion had nothing to do with where the WHO is headquartered. </p>
<p>Germany spends more money than any other European country, except the UK (and presumably the OP knows English) on global health care. It’s one of the biggest and shakers in the world especially around infrastructure development and other policy issues. </p>
<p>French is really valuable if you’re going to work in West Africa- which, granted, is a huge hotspot for global funders which is why I offered it as an alternative. </p>
<p>OP, some more info. I was talking to my advisor today who was the lead author on the recent ICPD (International Conference on Population Development) report through the UN so I trust her judgment on global health/development.</p>
<p>I told her I was interested in learning a third language (I am already proficient in Spanish) and asked for her advice. She said if I had limited time, I should focus on learning to read German or French. Most people in global health can speak/understand English but many do not translate their papers into English. </p>
<p>She stressed that learning to speak/understand is important but she knows that I struggle with languages so that was her advice. </p>
<p>@romanigypsyeyes Thanks formyour explanation. The Geneva reference was meant for the OP. She mentioned she’d probably choose German since the WHO headquarters were in Geneva. As I mentioned, Geneva is in the French part of Switzerland ch</p>
<p>Just wanted to let the OP know that learning German would not be as useful in Geneva as she would have thought. I am not discouraging German, I am only noting that even if the headquarters were in the German speaking part of Switzerland, Swiss German is quite different from the standard German spoken in Germany and what is learned in college.</p>
<p>I’m in public health also and the language that is most important/meaningful to you is really going to depend on the field that you want to enter. Many international public health practitioners work primarily with disadvantaged populations. If someone wants to be an epidemiologist in Latin America or West Africa, German is not going to help them - French, Spanish, or a local West African language like Bambara or Wolof might be a better choice. I have a friend who is fluent in Portuguese because she does work on sexual health in Brazil. Most of my friends fluent in another language are fluent in Spanish because they do global health work in Latin America; several others know French and/or a little of an African language because they do work in West Africa. So the language really depends on where you want to do the work.</p>
<p>If you want to do international policy or healthcare finance/business work, then German might be helpful. I also went to a top 10 SPH and have never heard that German was an especially important language for public health, but I am also in the more social & behavioral sciences side.</p>
<p>I agree with @comfortablycurt that the answer is that any negative mark on your transcript has the potential to hurt you. Does that mean that you won’t get in - of course not necessarily, especially if your transcript is otherwise pristine and you are otherwise an excellent candidate. But I don’t think it’s completely accurate to say that it won’t matter at all. This is especially true if epidemiology is your goal, OP. It is possible to get into some (great!) epi programs without any math background, BUT a math background is greatly valued and the more math you have the more competitive you will be. Also, many top epi programs do require a math background (like Emory’s). Most of my friends with an epi background had at least calculus I, and several had taken two semesters of calculus and linear algebra. If you are pretty sure you might want to do epidemiology, I would personally recommend retaking the course.</p>
<p>However, it is definitely true that your work experience will be more important than your academic record to a certain extent, so if you got some good work experience post-college (2-3 years) in public health that would greatly increase your chances of admission. Most of my MPH colleagues had at least 2 years of work experience before returning for the degree.</p>
<p>I agree, though, that since you’re a sophomore it’s a bit early - so keep your head down and just work hard! Internships are a great thing as well. If you are a minority student, you may be interested in the Summer Public Health Scholars program at Columbia (I taught there for 3 summers - great program) and it’s sister programs at Johns Hopkins/Kennedy Krieger and at Morehouse College (Project IMHOTEP). The CDC also has some summer projects for undergrads, and SLU maintains a list of summer PH internships [url=<a href=“http://www.slu.edu/college-for-public-health-and-social-justice/careers/national-public-health-internships]here[/url”>http://www.slu.edu/college-for-public-health-and-social-justice/careers/national-public-health-internships]here[/url</a>].</p>