The end of the semester and finals season is upon us at the Heller school. Amidst the busy schedules at end of semester and wrapping up final assignments, it is time to register for spring courses and design my final semester at the Heller school. I cannot believe it is already here – it seems like just yesterday I was at my first-year orientation and experiencing the Heller school for the first time.
To start building my spring schedule, I checked in with the academic advising staff here at the Heller school. I was able to confirm what requirements I was missing, which helped my figure out the bulk of the classes that I had to take. I was also able to learn which classes would count for specific requirements, allowing me to also take some courses of interest. Making sure I hit the requirements to graduate was my priority.
After this meeting, I made sure to check the course registration websites and check what times the courses were offered at, this helped me narrow down which courses I knew I was going to take. Some courses are offered at the same time, so I had to choose which worked for my requirements and what I desired to take.
I work part time so as I looked at the courses, I made sure to mentally block out times that I would like to have to go to work, while leaving time to get my coursework done. I was able to work out my schedule so that I will be on campus taking classes three days a week, leaving me two free days to either work on my coursework or go into the office for work. I am hoping that this schedule will give me a good balance between my coursework and allow me to effectively manage my time to work on my capstone – which I will talk about in a future blog post!
Finally, registration day was upon us, we have about two weeks to register, and I was able to register for the courses that I picked out. In the end, I ended up registering Healthcare Data Analytics and Data Mining, International Health Economics, Advanced Topics in Health Care Data Analytics and Data Mining, Causal Inference and Machine Learning in Studies Using Observational Data, and Quality and Performance Measurement in Healthcare, and Advanced Topics in Quality and Performace in Healthcare. I know that sounds like a lot, but Quality and Performance and Healthcare Data Analytics and Data Mining are module one classes, and then Advanced Topics in Quality and Performance, Advanced Topics in Health Care Data Analytics and Data Mining are module two. I love the flexibility that we have at the Heller School to not only take our required courses but also to explore so many unique and course topics that I know I would not otherwise be able to take – read here about my experience taking Social Policy through the Lens of Equity. I hope in my final semester I am able to continue to take the classes that I enjoy while also getting to explore some new topics. I will also be preparing to graduate and working on finishing my capstone so it will be an exciting semester for sure!