The course at the London School is unique because of the breadth of

students coming from all over the world and the range of experience they bring to it.

The teaching modules are

very diverse, it gives people a very strong grounding

while allowing them to look at their own specialist interests in some depth.

The first term gives a very broad grounding that everybody gets, in health economics

and basic statistics, epidemiology and social research,

after that students can specialize in one of six streams,

so they get a MSc with a very strong flavor of a particular stream,

for example health promotion

or health service management or research.

And within those streams they also get more opportunity to look at

individual topics as well.

With the streams that the students are able to take, you don't need to select that

before you apply for the course. Some students do,

but even if you do apply with a particular stream in mind,

once you arrive at the school and you see the modules in the other streams on

offer

and the style of the teaching, you can change your mind and opt into a

different stream.

And your final stream choice has to be made towards the end of the first term

usually in late November.

I chose to take the general stream as it was strongly

recommended to me as a part of my studies in Portugal as a medical resident in public health.

It is the one that prepares you best for the challenges you have to take

as a professional in the future

but after being here and studying it I think I would have

chosen it anyway because it gives me a broader perspective of

what public health can be like.

In my case I went on to do the health services management stream,

and so in order to take that stream I had to select certain courses in that

term one

that would set me up for. So I went into health services

and I also took an elective course in environmental health.

In the course of term 2, you are also working towards preparing your

project report

which is a three-month independent piece of research

that you do as kind of the capstone for the degree.

I love being a course director for Public Health.

It puts me in touch

with lots of very enthusiastic people with a huge amount of knowledge and skill

who are committed to improving global health.

So I love it because I learn as much as I get to teach.

The staff at the School are very pleased to talk to the students

and are very approachable if the student wants to talk about their

own particular

research that they're interested or the research that the academics

are doing themselves. We also have a range

of seminars outside of the main lectures

for example, one evening a week, we have a global health

lecture series and we'll also have researchers coming from

all over the world to present their research in

public seminars at lunchtimes or in the evenings.

The teachers are very engaged in what they are doing

beyond class. During class, of course, the

the relationship is very close and it's very good, but also

I think what was very important, was what was going beyond class,

so having the feeling that while I'm back home studying,

I can always email my teacher and I'm going to get an answer on the same day

about my questions or about anything else.

I think the teaching at the School is really good because

there are lecturers who have a really great reputation

you get to see them in their

element when they''re teaching to a huge group of people and

sharing their expertise, but then you've got the smaller seminar groups

where you can talk to people on a

more one to one basis and ask specific questions to clarify things.

There was a very nice feel that the teachers were working in collaboration

with you rather than

just telling you what to do,

and they respected people's backgrounds and expertise in seminars especially.

I think the London School has one of the best

environments for teachers and students to work together

in the sense that lot in my class' students

openly speak out against ideas or concepts presented by professors

if they disagree with them. And in a way it really opens up a great dialogue.

The summer process is a an important element of the course.

It's an integrating module within the course or integrating element,

that enables the student to draw on both their prior experience

but particularly all of the study that they have done

across the Masters and to include all of those in

an integrating project of 8,000 words

to demonstrate what they've learned, apply that knowledge to a particular

situation and undertake a piece independent research.

My summer project was on access to sexual health services for

trafficked women in the UK, and that

mainly started of with a literature review,

but also some transcripts of qualitative interviews,

so I think I got a good mix of different methods of research, which has

actually proved quite useful since then.

My summer project will be about analyzing secondary data

so I'll be doing it with Professor Martin McKee as a supervisor

and I'll be looking at the impact of the financial crisis in the UK in the

purchase of unhealthy foods and also alcohol.

Public health is about people

it's not just about diseases and

we require a very wide, diverse group of people

to deal with the problems of public health.

Since leaving the school I have got

a job as a Policy Adviser at Cancer Research UK

and I used my experience during the Masters

to talk about health policy and research,

both of those have been incredibly useful in my new job.

I think I definitely made the right choice in coming here.

I'm strongly considering coming back to the School

to do a PhD in two years, because the experience here

during the Master's was amazing.

I would absolutely recommend this course other people.

I've met people from all over the world,

professors that have applied experience in the field

and it's just a great learning environment all around.

It just feels professional which is great for an academic institution.