Now that the new undergraduate majors in public health are off and running, I’ve begun to notice students from the College sitting in on the same classes as me. This got me curious about the exact requirements of becoming an epidemiology major.

Looking at the required courses for the various public health majors, I came to an interesting finding. The major in epidemiology requires at least seven graduate-level courses for completion. The other public health majors, on the other hand, require a maximum of three, and a couple of the majors are planned in such a way that the student could avoid taking any. For me, this raises some serious red flags.

While I made it through my first semester as a doctoral student relatively unscathed, the classes I took still demanded more time out of me than many of my undergraduate classes. This semester, I am finding this to be the case even more. The concepts covered in some of my classes are above the level of thinking that was required of me as an undergraduate student overall, not to mention the fact that some of the students in my graduate-level classes are only sophomores.

Epidemiology is a unique field that really follows concepts unique to itself, and, as such, it is understandable why epidemiology majors are required to take epi-specific courses. However, the College should have considered this fact before creating the major. It is irrational of the administrators to believe that a major nearly half-filled with graduate courses is appropriate for an undergraduate degree, especially when the major requires 17 courses, which is many more than most other majors in the College.

I think that it’s great that undergraduates now have the opportunity to explore the many fields of public health, especially the often little-known field of epidemiology. However, I think the College must reexamine the requirements of these students and adjust the degree so that it is more reasonable for an undergraduate to fulfill successfully.