Masters degree from Georgetown or The American University of Paris? Help!

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>I am about to embark this Fall 2014 and start my 2nd masters degree. My first masters degree is in public health (as well as my bachelors degree), and I have 6 years experience working professionally in the field of public health.</p>

<p>I have been teaching abroad the past two years and have decided to go back to school again. I looked at getting my phd, but decided at this point another masters is a better fit.</p>

<p>I got accepted to Georgetown to study (in a nutshell) bioterrorism which fits nicely with my public health background and will put me on the fast track to the federal jobs I really want.</p>

<p>I also applied and got into The American University of Paris to study climate policy which also goes with my public health background and my experience with environmental health.</p>

<p>I have pretty much chosen Georgetown due to its prestige, rankings, located in a nice area, great program, excellent job opportunities, etc---but I still go back and forth. I think Paris would be an amazing place to live for a year and climate policy would be a great, up and coming field to go into.</p>

<p>I just don't think I can turn down Georgetown, but I'm still not entirely there sometimes. Do you think I would be making a huge mistake if I didn't go to Georgetown especially since my desire to work for the feds?</p>

<p>Any tips or suggestions? BTW--both programs are one year full time.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>Since your long-term goal is to work for the federal gov’t (assuming), go to Georgetown. You can always look for ways to work in Paris afterwards. You can get posted in Paris in your officially capacity, I am assuming? </p>

3

<p>Hi kathleentown–</p>

<p>That is what I am thinking since Georgetown is right in DC, of course it is the best choice for federal jobs. I just keep going back to climate policy too, which is the degree at the school in Paris. A lot of policy jobs are in DC and it is an up and coming field. </p>

<p>However, so is bioterrorism, and that will afford me the type of jobs I’ve wanted for a while as well.</p>

<p>Still trying to figure it out–and waiting to see my financial aid packages too. Georgetown is higher on the list though!</p>

<p>Thanks for your response!</p>

4

<p>I considered American University of Paris as well for a while as a possible MPA/MPP choice, but ultimately I dropped it. While they do have a program in my area of interest, it just didn’t make sense to study in Paris when there were programs in the same discipline that were just as good, and some that were much better, here in the U.S. Other than the chance to live and study in Paris, it didn’t offer anything. They had a program in my interest area, but so did hundred of other US schools. It couldn’t offer good networking opportunities, or even name cache (AUP isn’t like going to the Sorbonne or Sciences-Po, it’s not as if you’re attending an internationally recognized top university). </p>

<p>Also, AUP is expensive and they give very little financial aid. At best they say on their website (if I remember correctly) you could hope for a half scholarship, and I don’t think you can get US federal loan aid at an international school, so then you’re stuck taking out private loans at high interest or paying out of pocket. And as an added topper, I don’t think non-citizens on student visas can work legally in France, so getting a job to supplement income would be out. Might not be a concern for you, but it is for many. </p>

<p>If I was going to undergrad again, maybe I would consider AUP more seriously. It would be about the experience, the chance to live and study in Paris, and that would be great. But grad school is about building your professional skills and, especially your professional network. I would think especially for a second master’s, where you’re sort of switching career fields, you’d want to focus on schools with strong career services and alumnae networks, who can open doors for you into other fields. It would be much harder to find a good post-school job coming from Paris, where you won’t have access to American internships, networking opportunities, or just simple exposure to the U.S. job market. Hiring and recruitment is very different in Europe than in the States, and it’s hard to seriously job hunt from thousands of miles away. </p>

<p>If you’re really interested in climate change, you should look at US schools that offer programs in this field, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be in DC. If you’ve never worked in DC before and you’re thinking about a federal job, going to school in DC can be a benefit, just because it helps you learn about how DC really works from the inside. But if you want to work in public service, there’s no law that says you have to go to a DC school. I work for the government now, hope to in the future, and all the grad schools I’m applying to (except one) are outside of DC. </p>

5

<p>First of all - this may not be what you are looking for at all, but I’m not convinced that you need a second master’s degree when you aren’t really changing fields so much as shifting focus within a field. Both bioterrorism and climate change policy have connections to public health. If you have an MPH, that degree is meant to be a generalist’s degree - so the theory is that it should be able to be used for water rights and bioterrorism as easily as it could be used for state epidemiologist and community services jobs, although of course that’s going to be based also upon what your concentration was in grad school.</p>

<p>I know people who switched tracks within the federal government when they got bored working on a specific problem. I think it would be possible for you to shift gears by trying to find an entry- or mid-level job (depending on what your experience is) in the federal government working on one or the other issue and then use that as leverage to move up and firmly plant yourself in that field, rather than spending thousands on another master’s degree.</p>

<p>That said, your choice of master’s should be predicated upon what you really want to study. I think this is another good idea not to get any MS at all quite yet - because you don’t seem very sure about exactly what you want to do, other than work in the federal government in some capacity. But if you really do want to begin in the fall, I think the question is: do you want to work as a bioterrorism expert, preventing bioterrorism through HHS as an emergency management specialist or possibly by working with a government contractor or consulting agency? And are you willing to expand to general public health preparedness (as I think many positions want people who are more generally prepared)? Or do you want to work as a climate change policy expert in the world of environmental health?</p>

<p>Personally, I wouldn’t even consider AUP - I’d choose Georgetown in a heartbeat, for many of the reasons already listed.</p>

<p>-Graduate school isn’t really about the “experience” or the location; it’s about creating a professional network and getting a specific degree for a specific career. Georgetown is likely to be far better than AUP in that regard.
-Georgetown’s MS program in this field seems, to a certain extent, designed to get people to work in the federal government.
-The best way to get a job in the feds seems to be to intern with the feds, or at least a state government. Georgetown’s program will give you a better opportunity to get an internship with the federal government.
-Prestige does matter somewhat in the grad school sphere and Georgetown is more prestigious than AUP.
-Personally, I think bioterrorism is much more interesting, and there seem to be more actual federal jobs in terrorism and bioterrorism. Most of the climate change-related jobs I saw on a quick USAJOBS search were for PhD-level scientists in those fields - ecologists, geophysicists, biologists.</p>

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<p>Thank you guys for your responses!</p>

<p>My main reason for getting another masters degree is due to the fact that my MPH was not specific (as mentioned)–it was a generalist public health degree. I am almost leaning towards Georgetown 75% vs AUP at this point, but I still sometimes think about how climate change would be great to study.</p>

<p>Also, I have found that even with a MPH it is very hard to get a federal job at the CDC for example. My goal is not to just work in public health–I really like intelligence/bioterrorism field thus why I applied to the degree at Georgetown. I really liked the degree as it built upon my current MPH and would help me specialize more plus put me at a good school with more connections to federal jobs. I was a semi-finalist with the Presidential Management Fellows when I was completing my MPH, but I didn’t make the finalist stage which would have put me into a federal fellowship.</p>

<p>My main goal with this degree at Georgetown is to specialize in a specific field of public health, make connections, and ultimately find a job within a federal organization. AUP is exciting too–but as you guys stated, it wouldn’t be the best choice for my goals.</p>

7

<p>I can’t comment on the actual schools, but I did live in Paris for a Summer and it is an amazing place that makes our nicest cities look like Detroit. It’s modern, beautiful, has excellent food, and if you can believe it, I got lost less in Paris than I do in Manhattan, and I live right next to it! </p>

8

<p>since you already have an MPH, why not just complete a Certificate in biohaz and save a ton of money?</p>

9

<p>Thanks for the comments :)</p>

<p>bluebayou–I was looking into that, but the degree seems more beneficial. The certificate is online as well so that wouldn’t put me in the DC area unless I found a full time job there and moved there. Completing the MS plus my MPH makes me more competitive and puts me in the DC area to be able to accept jobs after I graduate.</p>