Student blogs

Having studied for over a year and half in Master of Health Economics, Policy and Management course, I felt it would now be a right time to express and share my personal view on the course as well as how it impacted my activities.

I aimed to write on overall experience so far and will be as honest as possible. As in the title, this course focusing on three main parts: Economics, Policy and Management related with the heath care sector. During the first year, the course taught us on the basic levels while second year on the advanced parts.

Course details: Total is 120 hp for two full year and can see the split of Hp (Credits) in the university webpage.

Summer Break

We had the summer break which was almost 3 months (6 June to 28 August). Although it could differ year to year of the exact date, you can expect it and may plan ahead for travelling, internship, etc. Later on, I will write a blog about summer internships of our classmates.

Winter lecture break!

During the late December, we had a lecture break about 10-15 days which meant we are not requires to come to University and no formal lectures. However, we had a few group projects and an exam was due right after the New Year. So pretty much of the time was used for self study and group works.

How the day goes in class…

Mostly of the courses were setup to full day lectures from 9 am to 4 pm in almost every working days. Even when there were no lecture, it usually is off for group assignments and projects. According to my experience so far, approximately 80% of study hours is tied with assignments and indeed it helps…

Grading system

In Sweden, there are only three gradings VG (Pass with Distinction), G (Pass) and U (Fail)? Though majority of the class works are group based, sometimes we are meant to do extra individual assignment of good quality to have VG while some courses doesn’t need to. While doing these extra individual assignments, some courses are mandatory (eg. Health policy) while some courses’ individual assignment are optional (eg. Advanced Health economics).

Support

Through my whole studies, as the non-native speaker, relate with writing, I get the best help from academic writing support of Karolinska where we can do the one to one appointment and go through together the texts. Since my english is not perfect, these session were super helpful to me. They also do workshop mostly every two weeks.

Thesis

The first thing to decide was which area out of three categories will be my thesis. Depends on my interests, it was best to talk with the potential supervisors who are either the current lecturer at KI or Guest lecturer. We can then find out whether they have the current projects for which they are looking to accept the MSc students. Alternatively, many of us waited till early second year when all the potential master thesis topics were posted by the course director.

I would also recommend you to attend and listen the thesis seminars and title defence sessions of second year students. I found it really helpful for me in choosing the areas, topics, and what to expect.

Extra Activities

For me, the study of second year’s advanced courses and master thesis are a lot more stressful compared to first year. I had to start using the to-do list and proper planning of daily schedule. I did multiple volunteer work in first year. But in second year, I ended up doing much less compared with the previous year.

It surely is important to do class assignments both individual and group works. But it is also equally important for me to do things I love during my spare time. Sweden has one of the most beautiful nature and sometime even viewing the beautiful sunset will surprise us with amazing colour painting of the sky.

Despite quite random experience sharing, I hope this blog helps you with some overview insight. Still do not hesitate to contact me via naw.hlaing.oo@stud.ki.se.