When it was founded, the School of Public Health was initially dubbed the “school without walls” to reflect our relationship to surrounding communities. It is a description and a charge that remains the hallmark of our programs.
Students at the School of Public Health become active in practicing public health from the start. Their work makes a meaningful difference to the lives of those served by our community partners. Our students spend more than 70,000 hours working in more than 300 community-based settings to solve practical, real-world problems. This work is carried out with the following community partners in the Philadelphia region, across the country and overseas:
-
Community organizations
-
Local, state and federal government agencies
-
Hospitals
-
Private companies
-
Non-profit foundations
Our students have routinely ranked their community work as one of the most meaningful and fulfilling portions of their academic experience at the School. In fact, it is one of the main reasons students say they decided to enroll at Drexel.
In the spring quarter of their first year, all full-time MPH students are required to complete a 120-hour practicum that provides them with hands-on experience in community-based settings. In the second year, students are required to work 1.5 days per week across the academic year at a community site where they develop their required Community-based Master's Project (CBMP) linked to their area of public health concentration.
Please visit our Office of Community Projects to learn more about the school’s practicum requirements and community partnership programs.