RESEARCH
Building our case



To gain a broad understanding of MSIS students’ interests and practices for degree planning, we distributed a survey to 40 current students. From these results, we created an interview protocol and followed up with 10 respondents to further investigate their experience selecting courses. These interviews uncovered practices, pain points, and suggestions related to the webpage.

Our interviews revealed that MSIS students’ struggled to efficiently sift through prospective courses and find relevant degree information. This organization made the course registration process unnecessarily demanding and left students confused about certain elements of their degree.











We identified eight themes to describe students’ needs and practices for course selection


  1. Students were divided into two patterns of course selection: 1) exploring a wide range of classes outside of their main professional interest and 2) solely focusing on the topics relevant to their career.
  2. Flexibility to explore courses across topics was valued among most students we spoke to.
  3. Students felt like they didn’t have clarity regarding what the degree entailed, such as course sequencing, endorsements of specialization, and long-term planning.
  4. Many students relied on personal tools and external resources to plan their course registration.
  5. Peers and faculty played a valuable role as trusted sources of information to influence course selection.
  6. Students in UX and Data Science tracks prioritzed courses that offered practical application.
  7. Students expressed a desire for more visual way to explore courses by area of study.