JD/MPH in Epidemiology: Curriculum

Law School Curriculum

Law School JD degree requirements for students entering Fall 2009 include satisfactory completion of 88 semester credits, and six semesters of full-time enrollment (defined as 12 semester credits or more). First-year students are required to take a core curriculum totaling 30 credits and comprised of the following courses: Beyond that, all courses are elective, except that a student must take a course in Professional Responsibility (3 credits) and Constitutional Law II (3 credits) before graduating. In addition, each student must satisfy a second-year writing requirement (typically by participating in a moot court or serving as a staff member on one of the Law School's law reviews), as well as a third-year writing requirement (typically satisfied by taking a course meeting this requirement, completing an independent research paper meeting this requirement, which may be an MS thesis, Plan B paper, PhD dissertation, or capstone project, or serving as an editor on one of the Law School's law reviews).

To see requirements for students entering in years other than 2009, visit www.law.umn.edu/current/degreerequirements.html.

In addition, all students in the Joint Degree Program in Law, Health & the Life Sciences take a professional seminar. This 1-credit Proseminar is taught cooperatively by faculty involved in the Joint Degree Program, offered on a pass-fail basis, and required each Fall semester that a student is enrolled in the Joint Degree Program.

JD/MPH in Epidemiology

Epidemiology provides the scientific basis of public health through description, quantification, and analysis of patterns of health and disease in populations and includes the study of biological, environmental, behavioral, and social factors underlying disease and health patterns. Such analyses lead to identification of the underlying causes of disease, the planning and evaluation of health services delivery, and the development of intervention strategies, programs, and policies to prevent disease and promote health. As a field, epidemiology has many interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary features as it seeks to advance and guide public health practice toward the improvement of human health.

Students usually complete a 48-credit curriculum that includes 38-39 credits of required coursework plus 9-10 credits of electives. Many epidemiology and other health-related graduate-level courses are available as electives. This allows students to develop a specialty emphasis in a specific disease, problem area or methodological area.

All master's students must submit a capstone project, which may take one of three forms: a written project that demonstrates the student's ability to do quantitative analyses using data collected by the student or obtained from another source, a written literature review of publishable quality that demonstrates the student's ability to review literature critically and synthesize published findings on a medical or public health topic, or an NIH-type grant application. Students choose their master's projects from a variety of potential topics/data sets. They may pursue projects with faculty, other University units, the Minnesota Department of Health, and other outside medical and healthcare organizations. A comprehensive oral examination is required. In addition to coursework and a master's project, students must participate in a qualifying field experience.

Combining Curricula

Students in the Joint Degree Program combine their Law and science/health curricula by cross-counting up to 12 Law credits in their science or health program and up to 12 non-law credits in their Law School program. For more details, click on "Cross-Counting Courses" above.

JD/MS or JD/PhD students are eligible for a minor in bioethics, bioinformatics, or human genetics.