By Keely Greiner, former Health Professions Peer Ambassador
As many of you know, the idea of a growth year (or years) is becoming increasingly popular among pre-medical and pre-dental students. Some students choose to advance their education before going to medical or dental school via a master’s degree or post-baccalaureate program. This post will be discussing the differences between them, popular options for pre-meds and pre-dents, and why you might consider these programs.
A post-baccalaureate, or “postbac,” program is a non-degree/certificate program meant to be done after you graduate from undergraduate school. Students enter these programs specifically to prepare for professional schools (say, medical or dental schools) by taking prerequisite courses that they didn’t take during undergrad and/or to make their applications more competitive, for instance by demonstrating academic rigor via a higher GPA. UConn offers a “Pre-Medical and Health Professions Post-Baccalaureate Program” with two program tracks ranging from two to four semesters. You can find more information on our website here. The AAMC also has some general information on postbac programs for pre-medical students here.
A master’s degree program is also available to students after they graduate undergrad. These programs are typically one to three years in length and may be available online, in a hybrid format, or in person. They are also available internationally! They may also be taken full-time or part-time, the difference being how many credits you take per semester and thus how long the program will take you to complete. You might do a master’s program because you want to further your knowledge in a subject you’re interested in, you want to explore a subject in more depth than you were able to in undergrad, or because you want to enhance your career prospects. Once completing a master’s degree, you will have advanced knowledge of your chosen subject as well as professional skills obtained through internships and/or research.
There are also accelerated degree programs, such as UConn’s FastTrack/Fast-Track master’s degrees. Offerings of interest include the Master of Public Health (MPH, https://mph.uconn.edu/fasttrack-program/), Master of Public Administration (MPA), Master of Public Policy (MPP), and Master of Arts in Survey Research (MASR). The last three are offered through the Department of Public Policy, and information on them can be found here and here.
If you want help deciding if one of these programs might be right for you, just reach out! You can find information on how to reach members of our office here. Best of luck!
The author of this post, Keely Greiner, was a Health Professions Peer Ambassador for our office in AY 2021 – 2022. She is a member of UConn’s FastTrack MPH program.