Two questions that come up frequently are "Can I do this program online?" and "How long does the program take to complete?". Students have the option to complete each course in the program either on campus or online, and students may finish the entire degree online. Oftentime, our students who also work full-time may mix the two modes, i.e. come to campus for some classes, and take the rest online. A number of professional development activities are available online as well as on campus, such as webinars with industry professionals, documentary film screenings, professional trips, and mentorship from faculty and industry partners.    Learn more about HSE Online

In terms of duration, there are many factors that affect the completion timeline of both the Master's and the Certificate, ranging from the pace students aim to keep, to when classes, required or elective, are offered, to other plans outside of academics. The upside is that the HSE Program offers a lot of flexibility, with the longest course sequence being two. After all, you would not want to have to choose between dropping your studies or passing up an exciting professional opportunity, would you? On the other hand, this creates a very large number of possible schedule permutations, each with different loads or sequences. Factor in that students can use substitutions to replace courses in which they already have a strong academic or professional background, and the number of possibilities increases still. This is why all HSE students develop a personalized schedule with their advisor as one of their first activities as students in the program (and sometimes, even as a part of the decision to apply).

The graphics below illustrate the amount of variety in students' schedules: the bar captures the minimum and maximum duration for the completion of the Master's and Certification curriculum, respectively, depending on the course load, while the size of the bubble captures roughly the proportion of students that undertake schedules of that general structure.

Range of duration of Master's program by number of courses per year; the size of the bubble represents the proportion of students on each timeline

Range of duration of Certificate program by number of courses per year; the size of the bubble represents the proportion of students on each timeline