Take courses in high school that will prepare you for postsecondary studies in epidemiology, Education-Portal.com advises. These courses should include calculus, biology and physics and should give you experience working in a laboratory. The advanced-placement versions of these classes are especially helpful. English and health sciences also are useful preparatory classes. Pay special attention to lessons on epidemics in history class, and read literature that explains how epidemics started.
Apply for bachelor's-degree programs in areas such as pre-medicine. Colleges pay special attention to your academic strengths and want to know if you took advantage of challenging courses, such as honors and advanced-placement classes, according to Boston University. Most colleges also require your SAT and ACT scores. Teacher and counselor recommendations and an essay also are part of the application process.
Complete pre-medical studies as part of your bachelor's-degree program, concentrating on classes such as health sciences, research methods, demographics, biology and math. Pre-medical studies aren't necessarily a major but rather a group of courses that the Association of American Medical Colleges recommends. You actually can major in any field of your choosing--even a nonscience field--while completing these recommended pre-med courses, according to CollegeBoard.com. This is a good avenue to take, because it shows medical schools that you are well-rounded. Pre-med classes include genetics, immunology, anatomy, neurobiology and biological chemistry.
Apply for and complete a master's-degree program in epidemiology. Epidemiologists are usually required to this degree, if not a physician's license. This two-year degree program is especially fitting if you're interested in epidemiological research, according to the University of Arizona. Examples of courses in this type of program are introductory epidemiology, introductory biostatistics, statistical methods for epidemiological research and issues in research protocol development, according to the University of Pennsylvania Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.