What Can You Do With an MPH?

"Oh, you're getting your MPH? What exactly can you do with that?"

I suppose that's a fair question, but since I'm literally asked that question at least twice a day, my answer has become so memorized that I begin to sound like a auctioneer at a hospital spouting out random medicine-y sounding terms. 

I've got a lot of friends considering getting their Masters in Public Health at the moment, and for anybody else that's considering life after undergrad, here's some of the potential opportunities for an MPH student:

• Biostatistician - If you're good with numbers, and medicine interests you as well as statistics and probablility, this may be for you. The pay is awesome, not too many people do this (read: no competition), and you could end up being the researcher that discovers the cure to Alzheimer's using what you know.
• Epidemiologist - Have you seen World War Z, or Contagion? If you want to be the government/hospital employee who is the first to get the vaccine during the next apocalypse, this is the job for you. You'll also be spending your time analyzing the spread of disease in order to find out just where and why outbreaks occur, as well as how to stop them. Pros: awesome pay, super interesting, an extremely broad field, and job security so good you'll be living in a vault. Cons: potentially being in contact with the world's deadliest diseases.
• Health Policy Creator/Politician - A more political route, but a vital one, nonetheless. You'll be responsible for the development of policies that effect populations. Your specialization will probably effect what type of policy/legislation you would help create. For example, if your cognate is nutrition, you'd be the guy who mandates that all high schools in the area have to teach one nutrition class before graduation.
• Humanitarian Aide Guy- If this is what you're into organizations such as the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, and the Peace Corps like to snatch up people like you. You'll be traveling overseas and overlooking the distribution of medical supplies and food. You might want to work on learning a second language as well if this is your goal. 
• Public Health Education Person - Your goal here is to educate the population on certain topics pertaining to public health. This is great if you're really passionate and know a lot about a certain subject, and want to tell as many people as possible. 
• Healthcare Management - Though you'll probably never end up managing a large hospital solely with an MPH and no business experience, an MPH is an awesome way to help be certified if you want to own a series of nursing homes, clinics, etc. Really. Take some business classes first.
• Research Assistant - You'll be involved in discovering the risk factors and cures to today's problems. A very noble profession, be be warned, this is often a lot of writing, reading, statistics, and other field/lab work.
• Environmental Health Manager - One of the things that fascinated me about my environmental health class was just how interesting waste management is. Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. But it's not! I promise! If you want to own a water plant, waste removal business, or something similar, this can help.

Other potential job opportunities lay within the Center for Disease Control (what they blow up in season 1 or 2 of the Walking Dead), the World Health Organization, the United Nations. 

Overall, an MPH prepares you for a rather diverse job field. Whereas with a DPT (nothing against physical therapists), with an MPH you're not pegged to one job for the rest of your life. If you get tired of being an epidemiologist, you can go into research. And once you tire of that you can teach at a university. Then you can write a book. You get the point. So, if you're interested, check it out!