How do I Choose the Best Informatics Course?

Choosing the best informatics course is usually a matter of finding a class that fits your personal career goals and covers the sorts of things you both want to and need to learn for success later on. Informatics is a really broad field, and different courses have different things they focus on or emphasize. Once you have an idea of your “ideal” class, you’ll need to carefully consider the options available to you. Asking about the coursework required and the textbook used is a good place to start; talking to current students and researching the professors can also be useful. Of course, reading the university or institute website will also give you a good sense of whether a particular course will be a good fit for you. It’s important to remember throughout all of this that the quest for what’s “best” is very subjective. What’s best for you may not also be best for your friend or roommate, and vice versa.

Perhaps the most important thing you’ll want to do when thinking about informatics courses is to carefully identify what it is you’re trying to learn. This will help you rule out classes that aren’t good fits, and solidifying your goals before you enroll can also help you get more out of the class you do choose. Most courses operate with the same core set of assumptions and operational functions, but the subject matter can drive the focus.

Informatics is also known as the science of information, the engineering of information systems, or the human consequences of technological advances. Students use knowledge and skills from different disciplines, including information systems, computer design, psychology, and sociology, to inform their studies. There are many different courses as a result: students can pursue careers in health informatics, biomedical informatics, or media informatics. If your hope is to work analyzing data sets for a political interest organization, for instance, your best course probably isn’t one that focuses on streamlining health data, though someone wanting to amalgamate insurance claims information or disease contagion rankings might really thrive in this sort of class.

It’s also important to take a close look at the coursework of any class you’re thinking of taking. Most professors and experts recommend that students look for varied coursework. Technical courses that include the broad suite of programming, web development, and database management are often more useful in the long-term than are those that focus on one area to the exclusion of others. Students are also usually wise to take classes in project management, computer design, and information systems. The main goal of any informatics course should be to prepare students to design and develop information management systems and complex systems involving large databases of information, no matter the specifics of that information.

Ideally, the coursework should allow you to analyze national and global information policy and confirm the security and integrity of these systems. Designing applications needed for information storage and access may also be a part of it. Your best informatics course should probably also address knowledge and understanding of human behavior as it applies to developing social networking applications and mobile technologies.

Most college and university websites include information about informatics curriculum and course descriptions, and reading these can give you a good sense of what you could expect were you to enroll. In some cases, these sorts of courses can even be taken online, and in these instances the websites are often very rich with information about what’s included, how students are assessed, and who you can talk to for more information. If you’re considering taking an informatics course online it’s usually a good idea to look for accredited programs that have some sort of affiliation with brick-and-mortar schools or programs.

Other than researching course specifics, one of the best ways to get a sense of how a class really operates is to talk to other people who have taken the course or schedule a meeting with the professor who teaches it. Most professors are eager to talk to prospective students about their courses, since this can both build enthusiasm and prevent you from enrolling if you aren’t going to like the material or the format. Some will even let you sit on a few classes to get a feel for how things are taught and discussed. You can then use this information to make a reasoned decision when it comes to how well you think you’d learn and what you’d get out of the course overall.