As an honors student at IU Indianapolis, I have been blessed with having many special opportunities that have not been available to all students. Such opportunities range from researching special topics such as political systems in the Middle East with faculty to conducting a critical film analysis. While I have grown throughout all of my honors experiences, my journey in both “SPEA-J 550: Human Rights and War Crimes” and “SPEA-V 512: Public Policy Process” is especially meaningful to me. These courses are both master’s level, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to take them during my undergraduate career. This is the result of a unique O’Neil School program in which specific students can take master ’s-level courses as part of an accelerated master’s certificate program. Through the honors college, taking a master’s level course itself is considered an honors experience. 

At the time I was offered this chance, I had begun to consider graduate school but was unsure which subject to pursue. While the idea of getting a master’s in public policy was in my head, I was still unsure about various things. I didn’t know if I was “qualified” enough to do well in graduate school. In addition, I wasn’t fully sure if public policy was the right subject for me. Taking these two classes served as a trial for both my future master’s career and to see if I could handle the course material, and to see if it fully interested me. I met with my regular advisor and a career consultant, who encouraged me to explore various areas to determine what I wanted to pursue for my master’s. They explained that it was a big commitment and it was something that I was truly passionate it. Few people are given the chance to have a trial run of graduate school and graduate coursework with undegraduate tuition rates and I am grateful for the chance I was given. 

“SPEA-V 512: Public Policy Process” served as a sort of introductory class to the master’s program available here at IU. I had researched the program at both IU campuses and saw that they were among the best in the country. I figured that if I liked the content and did well in the class, it would be a sign that graduate school is for me, specifically in public policy/administration. As the semester progressed, I discovered that I really resonated with the material and how it applied to real-world contexts and the way I think. In addition, I didn’t find the class assignments and readings overwhelming or too complex. I saw this as a sign that I was more than capable of graduate coursework. In addition, my interest in the class context indicated to me that public policy was for me. Lastly, I was able to form a connection with my professor, Nathan Cook, whose teaching style and way of explaining things resonated with me and made it easy for me to understand. He was easy to communicate with and was more than willing to answer questions. My experience in this course helped me confirm my career goal of going to graduate school for public policy and pursuing a career in policy analysis. 

The other graduate course I took as an honors experience was “SPEA-J 550: Human Rights and War Crimes”. I found the course content very interesting, and I have always been interested in human rights research. This course provided me yet another opportunity to see if a master’s in public policy was for me and to realize if master’s level coursework is something I could handle. Similar to my time in SPEA-V 512, I really enjoyed the class material and never was overwhelmed by the assignments and tasks we were given. I formed a deep connection with Professor Dr. Courtney Tan and my TA Mckenna. My connection with them both allowed me to ask questions to them freely about course material and go to them for support as I needed. This class also included a research partnership with the Department of Homeland Security’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center. I found the opportunity to apply the human rights content from class to the real world beyond fulfilling. This opportunity led me to improve my research skills, further confirm that graduate coursework was manageable for me, and led me to my current internship with the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center. This course further confirmed me my desire to pursue graduate school in the topic of public policy. 

I believe that these experiences were a major example of the honor college’s goals of engaged and experiential learning. After all, through these two courses, I was able to experience master’s-level coursework firsthand and discovered that I was capable of doing so at a high level. In addition, my research in SPEA-J 550 allowed me to engage with the material in a real world application beyond theory and led me to see the importance of what we were learning in class. In addition, SPEA-J 550 served as the culmination of all the growth I had seen in research throughout my undergraduate career. While my prior honors research experiences had focused on theoretical aspects of political science, my human rights research was the first time my research had a potential tangible real world impact. Overall, my time in both SPEA-J 550 and SPEA-V 512 were transformative for me and solidified my desire to pursue my master’s in public policy after graduation and look forward to a career in policy analysis.