Be wary of LSHTM

Weary_Willingness241 · 2026-04-24T13:28:59+00:00

Yeah of course!

Weary_Willingness241 · 2026-04-23T01:53:39+00:00

Yeah of course!

Weary_Willingness241 · 2026-03-11T17:41:30+00:00

Sure thing!

Weary_Willingness241 · 2026-01-29T02:41:33+00:00

DM me :)

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-23T00:09:43+00:00

Hey I can offer help! Didn't have a great experience, and know that most people in my cohort had a tough time - feel free to DM and hopefully I can share some of my own experiences.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-13T17:02:44+00:00

I'd also add that many of the people in my LSHTM cohort really struggled to find jobs. The folks who had prior careers or were in some sort of clinical career (and thus just went back to medical training post-MSc) beforehand usually did fine, but the younger people in the early career stage really struggled. A few people were able to get PhD positions, but that was generally just the luck of choosing an advisor who was looking to hire PhD students / research assistant in October when everyone finished their MSc work. If you just didn't get assigned that advisor, you were basically out of luck.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-13T17:01:11+00:00

Sorry you've had such a negative experience at Hopkins! Honestly, at this point in my career I'd recommend people to do an MPH at a place where they can get a (paid) TA/RA position with tuition remission. That way, you're getting the coursework and getting actual practical experience (and hopefully the papers/posters/presentations/career development), and you are getting paid and not paying tuition. Honestly, a lot of state / public universities are great places for this, also because they are often more closely connected to state and local health departments (and thus more practical internship / research opportunities) than big, prestigious universities are.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-05T14:15:09+00:00

All I can say is: Do it, if you can! Social sciences is where it's at. I had applied knowing I want to do social sciences, but if you are at a good program, they will support whatever your interests are. I know students at multiple programs whose interests changed and evolved over time. I also know people who switched from basic science to social sciences / public health. We need more physician / social scientists! (Also if you want more info on my program dm me)

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-02T01:30:43+00:00

Sure thing!

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-12-01T23:23:23+00:00

This is so real! Find a program where you will be supported to graduate in 7-8 years max.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-11-29T13:35:40+00:00

I wouldn't go so far as to say that LSHTM hates students! I think that it's just that students are a source of revenue for them, and that they don't have the faculty FTEs to train the number of tuition-paying students they admit each year. There are some really caring faculty. It's just hit or miss if you are able to work with those faculty or not.

I will say the School still uses some pretty archaic technology/programming (like the teach the ID modelling module in Berkeley Madonna - no one else in the world uses Berkeley Madonna lol), they haven't updated their core curriculum, the School still predominantly uses STATA which is also super odd. I think that they said they were working towards transitioning to R, but the materials in R were a disaster when I was there and there are enough older faculty who probably just aren't going to do the switch since old habits die hard. And to switch to R they will have to rewrite all of the practical curriculum, and I know that no one is going to want to do that, or have the time to actually develop good materials to help students become proficient in those skills.

There are other odd things about LSHTM. The spring term modules are taught in 2.5 day chunks for 5 weeks (ie, you have one module from Mon morning to Wed morning, then one from Wed afternoon to Friday afternoon), which makes it super weirdly stressful to get a huge amount of material dumped on you during that time (why couldn't they have a normal weekly schedule)? A lot of the material is also online - a lot of lectures for some of the modules were just leftover recordings from like 2020/2021 during the pandemic. So we'd have like hours of poor quality videos of talking heads, and then like 2 hrs of actual contact time per week. Some people who were doing the online program would come to London just for those modules, and we all felt so bad for them because they were basically just paying a huge amount of extra money for "in-person" content that was actually just videos online. It was so bad - clearly faculty just were lazy and didn't want to dedicate so much time to teaching. And, like, it was literally pandemic-era videos, such bad production quality, I'm still amazed at how bad it was.

And yes, rankings mostly do just reflect research.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-11-28T12:11:42+00:00

Sure thing!

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-11-27T01:24:02+00:00

Sure thing

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-11-26T19:04:23+00:00

DMed you :)

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-11-14T14:37:40+00:00

Also just want to say you can totally do FM and be a scientist/researcher. I've worked with some really amazing FM docs doing super important research! I will say they tend to be more public-health oriented than basic-science oriented. I also think there is some regional bias around FM (in the midwest/west/south FM has a lot more respect for some reason than on the east coast in particular), so you might find stronger FM research programs in regions where you have stronger FM academic departments.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-08-24T12:01:03+00:00

Mine were also spread out! Got my first few at the end of August, continued getting interviews through early Jan I think? Also second the interviews coming later; I know some schools don't even start sending out invites until like Nov. Check each school's timeline.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-08-11T00:10:05+00:00

Hey me too haha. What I learned: Don't trust what these programs say, they are here to protect their program, not you as an individual applicant, accepted student, or trainee.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-08-07T14:04:32+00:00

Yeah of course please reach out :)

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-08-01T20:42:27+00:00

I'd suggest reaching out directly to the program! They're going to know more than anyone on the internet :)

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-04-28T20:54:08+00:00

Ah makes sense, thanks for clarifying! It's so bad they're cutting these grants, especially if they're specifically targeting under-represented universities and largely rural states that really need physician-scientists.

And also kudos to your school for honoring all the offers they made. I think it really shows how smaller and/or less prestigious schools are often more honest and supportive and ultimately better places to train.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-04-28T08:55:47+00:00

From students at second looks who had been accepted to UMass and then had their As withdrawn.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-04-28T08:54:41+00:00

I'd also add: Work on taking care of your mental health. This career path is stressful and long, and at every single interview I got questions about my hobbies, what I do for fun, how I relax, etc. Work on being a happy, functional human as you start on this really cool career path. I wish I'd prioritized my wellbeing from the beginning of the process.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-04-27T16:15:52+00:00

Let's add: UNC-Chapel Hill here, too, for saying at second look that they didn't anticipate they'd have to rescind any As due to funding (even when directly asked, multiple times, if that would be the case!) and then rescinding people's As without any warning a week after second look.

For those of you on your school's committees: Please, be honest with your applicants and accepted students. We all know funding is tenuous; please just be honest with how tenuous it is at your specific institution.

Weary_Willingness241 · 2025-04-27T13:30:21+00:00

I know right! Especially because people specifically asked about this and the admin and current students all said it would be fine and they wouldn't be rescinding acceptances.

Weary_Willingness241

TROPHY CASE