<p>Hello!</p>
<p>So long story short, I recently quit my job as a legal assistant to pursue obtaining Masters of Health Administration or Masters of Public Health - emphasize/specialize in Health Care Management/Administration.</p>
<p>Since I am new to to this field, I decided to volunteer this year at a hospital, hoping to gain some experience working in the healthcare industry and I am currently trying to find an internship as well to balance that out with studying for my GRE. </p>
<p>I graduated in 2011 from a state school with International Development Studies. </p>
<p>My question is, how competitive is for me to get accepted to one of the SPH (School of Public Health), Sloan (Cornell), NYU (Wagner), or USC (Price) since I am new to this field? I don't have any experience in terms of healthcare or hospital management/operation. </p>
<p>Any advice?</p>
<p>MPH programs typically prefer some work experience in the field, although what is considered “in the field” is pretty expansive. For example, at my SPH (Columbia) most programs require 2+ years of work experience in the field, but people have done a variety of things, including full-time volunteering. You don’t necessarily need direct experience in healthcare/hospital management, but the closer you can get to that the better. Some HPM students have worked as admin assistants and program associates; some didn’t do any management work at all before starting. They may have been research assistants or project coordinators, and some of that work does require some management and operations skills.</p>
<p>MHA programs are probably more akin to MBA programs in that they do want some health administration experience.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you quit your job as a legal assistant, though. The skills that you learn in that field are transferable to management. If you have experience as a legal assistant, though, you may be able to leverage that into a job as a legal assistant to a lawyer who handles health-care related issues or in the legal department of a hospital or clinic.</p>
<p>Originally, I intended to go to law school but in the end, I decided change my career since I am not passionate in the legal career. </p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I spoke with several other schools and they said I don’t need any experience but it will be helpful if I did. I am volunteering at a hospital right now so hopefully it will work out</p>