 Well, hello everybody. Thank you so much for joining this information session for the master of science and bioethics program. I'm just going to go ahead and get started with some team introductions. So, with us, we have Rebecca Brindell, director of the master of science and ethics program. We have Kelsey Barry and Johnny Boshansky, our associate faculty directors. Crystal Chang is our associate director of education and Samantha Pick is our education recruitment administrator and I'm Jesse Tucker, the education recruitment administrator. So, you'll hear from many of us today, and I'm just quickly going to provide you with some notes for the session. This is a webinar, so you will be able to submit questions at the bottom of your screen and that Q&A section. So if you click that button at any time, you can write a question and submit that over to us and then we'll either type the questions in and you'll see that in a little section called answered questions. But at the very end of the session will also answer any questions that you have live and you'll hear from all members of the team that are here with us today. The session is being recorded and we'll post that to YouTube afterwards. There's also going to be a lot of information that we'll send out after the session and that'll be a lot of useful links, which will just kind of provide you more information on what we've talked about. So the agenda for today is really kind of just giving you a background on the program and you know you're going to hear from a bunch of us on the team and you can kind of hear about what it's like and what you can expect as a student here at Harvard Medical School. So with that I'm going to pass it on to Kelsey. Thank you so much, Jesse. It's wonderful to be here with all of you from around the world to think together about the masters of science and bioethics program and explore whether you might consider doing this study at Harvard Medical School. So you might be sitting in the audience thinking well why bioethics in particular, and it's really true that critical developments are happening in the life sciences and in population health right now at an unprecedented rate. And during this period of really rapid development. We're also asking key questions about our responsibilities to one another. So for example, how do we think about which technologies to invest in, how do we ensure that they're developed access equitably and that these values of kind of care and sustainability are really upheld as we strive to advance the human condition through the life sciences and through population health. And coming out of the pandemic especially as COVID-19 has become to wane around the world. There's really no better time to be working in bioethics in both reflecting upon some of the lessons that that moment globally brought us and also anticipating for the future challenges and opportunities that we want to ensure are thoughtfully considered and pinned to underlying human values. So, we'll say in order to do all of that big work right we need to understand not only the theoretical underpinnings of how we think about our moral responsibilities, but we also need to gain practical skills and experiences in applying that understanding to the challenges and opportunities in order to make real change in the world rather than simply keeping our thoughts in the ivory tower may we're in an academic institution. And so on the next slide if you're kind of compelled by this vision of bioethics. The question of why Harvard Medical School will certainly come to mind as the place of study for you. And Harvard Medical School really is an ideal place to study bioethics in large part because they coming to Harvard, you're coming to the largest biomedical research community in the world. So the Harvard teaching faculty and facilities are unprecedented upwards of 13 affiliated teaching hospitals, each with their different microcultures right so different kind of ethical considerations arising each world class research labs both on the HMS quad and throughout the university combining life and social sciences from basic sciences to bench to bedside. So students who come to HMS have access to a number of resources, not only is there the opportunity to cross register across the university. So we have for example students for taking courses, not just at Harvard Medical School, but also at Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, students who are studying at the School of Public Health and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences here. And that opportunity really allows them to get at the many dimensions of study that address questions in bioethics beyond the tailored resources that are being provided through the Masters of Bioethics program here at Harvard Medical School. And then of course, lots of opportunities outside the classroom for lectures, events, consortia, incredible speaker series and many more so it's a little bit like drinking at a fire hose in some ways you could spend more than 24 hours a day, thinking and engaging topics and bioethics and get still have more to learn more to do. And so it's a really vibrant community in that respect. There are a lot of resources to help you navigate that space, and we're really committed to having a robust advising system to support you in doing that work. So within Harvard Medical School on the next slide I'll tell you a little bit about the HMS Center for Bioethics. This is the center out of which the Master of Science and Bioethics degree is offered. And it's a tailored focused program for students. So the HMS Center for Bioethics is unique in the university in the sense that it has an incredibly broad range of faculty affiliated with it. And that's really not all right so we have a number of peers in the program, the ones that you would be studying alongside of who are at a different range of places in their careers so somewhere relatively earlier in their careers, others who are relatively years. And this generates a really diverse set of people. This background and expertise span science, law, medicine, right, research, industry practice, care, and beyond. So our center as I said has this breadth of affiliated faculty, this breadth of multidisciplinary leaders in your peers. And that means that we also access to a lot of expertise. So our faculty have broad expertise in clinical ethics, research ethics, public policy and ethics, neuroethics, feminist and subaltern approaches. There's really no area of bioethics that you cannot explore while you're here at Harvard Medical School. And as I was mentioning we have such an incredible student body so let me tell you a little bit about them so you can start to imagine yourself amongst them. So we have this year 122 students in residence, 34 with us studying full time on campus, and then 88 students with us studying part time, the vast majority of whom are learning with us virtually from around the United States and around the world. We have students and alumni now from over two dozen countries. And really as I said wide range of educational and professional backgrounds in what student body. As I mentioned, medicine, of course, it's a medical school so we do see a lot of folks who are coming to us with an interest in or background in medicine, but also much broader than that so folks with a background in law, right, public health, really thinking about our difference to one another at the population level, individuals and social work right in nursing, also in the allied health professions, speech pathology language pathology, physical therapy. We have people who are focused on communications public engagement, for example through journalism practice, people who have worked in business settings, health care management, and in basic and translational research, right in the life sciences and in the sciences. And so all of these backgrounds amongst our student body alone, really enriches the experience of being a member of the master of science and bio effects community. As you can imagine, each person's perspective shapes how they think about what we owe to one another and what our responsibilities are, and their ability to bring forward those perspectives and cure learning groups, and in the classroom is amongst the greatest strengths of this community. I did mention we've got some folks at the beginning of our careers, those who have just graduated from undergraduate programs, and are striking out on what they expect to be a lifelong commitment with health science, and the ethical and moral values that underpin those areas of practice. We have others who are more towards the middle, or even the later or top end of their careers. They're really coming back, asking these critical questions about what they've seen, experienced, been part of, right, and thinking about how to change that practice through their leadership, and an awareness of ethics, values, and responsibilities, really bringing back to the places in which they work that kind of broaden theoretical and practical underpinning of bio ethics. So if you'd like to join us community and we hope that it's of interest to you, there are two ways that you can enter a course of study in the fall of 2024. The first that we offer is a full time program of study on campus in the Longwood Medical Area, and this is really a focused and immersive approach to completing the program. So students studying the full time with us come to the Harvard campus and Longwood Medical Area surrounded by all of our teaching hospitals. We complete their full 36 credits of the program in one year, one academic year from September through May in a full time course load. And so courses are offered both in the morning and in the evening and you can generally expect to be a full time student. So for those of you who are unable to come to the campus and study full time, we have a second fully virtual program through which you can complete the master of science and bio ethics. That program is completed part time over two academic years, and it's designed for a fully virtual experience now informed by several years of adapting curriculum and student experience for the online space. And what it means really is that regardless of your geographical location, you're able to have an opportunity to come and study at Harvard Medical School. So this part time online program is really conducive to being able to continue to work in your area of practice while completing your bio ethics coursework. I will make an important note though that this program is perhaps unlike some other virtual master's degree programs that you might be familiar with. In the sense that all the learning is done live. Right, so we meet synchronously. We meet in a zoom room, much like this although we're actually able to see all of one another in in our kind of zoom boxes. And the teachers offer the curriculum live during those two meetings. So this means that you're getting real bonds with your faculty, and with your cohort. And this means that classes, right, are mandatory to attend their health typically in the evening in Eastern time. And so that's an important consideration when you think about completing the part time course of study with the Center for bioethics here at Harvard Medical School is just thinking about how it fits in my to your life and your other responsibilities as a working professional. Regardless of the course of studying whether it's full time on campus part time online that works best for your life and location the curriculum between the two is exactly the same. Let me tell you a little bit about that slide. So, the curriculum is built around a nine month full time attendance approach, or that kind of two year part time attendance approach. Earlier in the slides I mentioned that there's a real importance to not only having the theoretical underpinnings to appreciate what our responsibilities might be, but also the practical experience the kind of outside the classroom learning that enables an individual to apply those things. So, bioethics as an applied field really is often in the doing, right, it doesn't sit in the educational space in the kind of academy universities, but really tries to go out into the world in ways to support health and flourishing for all people experience of care, development of new research and technologies, or in thinking about population health and policy that structures for prospects for flourishing in life over our lifetimes. And so the two kind of core required pieces of our program really exemplify this commitment, both to theory and to practice, and those form the cornerstones of our program. The theory side is our course foundations of bioethics one and two, which is taken by all students in their first year of study. And that's a year long to semester course that is going to introduce all students to the building blocks of bioethics knowledge and practice. In the fall we have philosophy, theology, right, and history, and some consideration of moral psychology, the sciences how that informs our thinking about ourselves as moral agents. And then as we transition into the spring, we end with social science and political philosophy as we really think about the application of some of these moral commitments that bioethics work help us identify into our society and into public spaces. It's a sort of translational work in connection with the theory at that point. Now, foundations of bioethics is a rigorous course. It is 10 full credits, and the important part is that it's paired with a number of other opportunities to start to extend that theoretical foundation into specific areas of practice. So other core classes include research ethics, introduction to clinical ethics, and health law policy and bioethics really covering three domains in which bioethics has traditionally and will continue to meet significant contributions. I mentioned that there was a second cornerstone of our program which is the practice side. And this is really the capstone experience. I'll say a word about that in just another slide so please put a pin in it. But I did want to not neglect to mention that this is the second cornerstone of the program. So students will all complete their foundations course, their capstone experience, and their core classes. And beyond that there are a number of elective credits associated with the course of study that you can use to register into electives that are offered through the master of science and bioethics program, or to cross register as I mentioned, into any number of the other schools here at Harvard University from law to business to public health and beyond. Let me say a little bit of a word about the capstone experience because it was among the most compelling pieces. I think of the program for many who are first exploring it. And in fact, from the very beginning, when the master of science and bioethics was started back in 2015. It was a component of the program that we are particularly proud of, and have really invested in over time to make it what it is today. As I mentioned, bioethics is very much in the doing, right, not simply in the thinking although that's certainly important. But we felt that there are a lot of critical skills that people learn simply by doing the work of bioethics that enables them to essentially step into those roles more confidently, and in a more grounded fashion that they might have otherwise been have they only stayed inside the classroom doing their learning. So what we're doing in the capstone experience is really there are two things happening. The first is, we work with students over the course of the summer, before they join us. Or if you're in the protein program we work with you towards the end of the first year to get ready for custom in the second year to come up with these mentored experiences that align with your experience level, and your aims in the field of bioethics. So we match each student with a mentor who's actively working in the field of bioethics in some capacity, whether it's on the ethics side of things or the bio side of things the bio and health side of things. And it's a real focus on gaining hands on experience and still building opportunities that will really help you develop your career so we think of this capstone experience as something of a launchpad right so for a year, you develop and focused work in bioethics that then ends up being a really supportive transition as you go into the next phase of your career, or look at returning to the spaces from which you came in translating some of the skills and work that you've been doing. That's kind of the experiential mentor part but I don't want to neglect to mention the reflective curricular part of the custom experience. So not only over the course of the year are you engaging in this mentor experience with a faculty member, but you are also part of a longitudinal seminar throughout that year, which has led the one of our bioethics faculty. And during the seminar, which are typically very small groups of about six students each, you're digesting and considering the nature of the work that you're doing in your capstone experience, alongside important curricular considerations that relate to the practice of bioethics. So for example, curricula that focus on how to practice bioethics with integrity. Right, concepts of moral courage concepts of conflicts of interest that come up as we conduct ourselves as professionals in this field. So a lot of important considerations that really come into being a practitioner of bioethics are part of what that seminar is bringing forward and helping us digest. Let me give you a little bit more concrete sense of what some of this custom experience might look like. On the next slide I'll tell you about these kind of three main areas that we tend to divide capstone experiences into, although I will note that these are broad buckets, right, and more often than not we're really working very closely with students, including to identify experiences in the leading edge of bioethics which might not fit neatly into any one of these particular buckets. But I'll tell you a little bit about these, because they were the vast majority of our students tend to focus their capstone experience and work. First, of course we have, as I said, a really robust clinical ethics enterprise ongoing at Harvard Medical School and lots of expertise in that area amongst our faculty. And so students have done capstone experiences in the past that focus on topics and areas as wide as end of life decision making and ethical considerations that come up in that context, all the way to say it's right for the very beginning of life, for example, in labor and delivery. We've also had students who do work evaluating clinical ethics practice right looking at for example, unit based ethics rounds or even shadowing people who are doing that kind of work. We've learned the way that different ethics services and programs are set up within our institutions of care in translating that knowledge back into their own institutions as well, building new programs and improving programs, and really looking at the structures that facilitate high quality ethics work in healthcare settings. So clinical ethics is an important component research ethics is another place where we have a big depth of expertise and practice going on so students can conduct capstone experiences in the space of research ethics, really looking at responsible conduct of research, how institutional review boards help govern the work of human subjects research and bring ethical considerations into their oversight and support of research. And also students who want to really dive into specific topical areas so for example we have a student this here looking at how gender is conceived in the course of organizing and developing a research agenda. Sex linked biological differences, for example, as part of some of the complicating factors that go into doing research with different sorts of individuals. As I have here on the slide also folks were thinking about things like contraceptive management in the course of research with adolescents so how do we think about preserving first fertility for example. When there is a trial undergoing with new types of drugs and that sort of thing so lots of different areas that can be topically developed within the space of research ethics and really tailored to your particular interests. The third bucket that I'll mention is here in this place of policy and government and this is among I think one of the kind of under looked areas that bioethics has contributed to in the past, and has such an incredible opportunity to shape and contribute to in the future. So we know that considering our commitments to one another on an individual level is really important. And yet at the same time we also want to build societies right and build systems and structures that allow people within them to be their best selves, right to hold up their responsibilities to one another, and to ensure that the way that they interact with one another facilitates broader values of justice right and flourishing. And so work in policy and government capstone experiences tend to focus on these bigger picture questions. So we've had folks, students, sorry, working in areas of medical aid and dying right doing legislative analysis around that topic which continues to come up in a variety of different settings. Others who have focused their work in public health thinking about harm reduction considerations in regards to the opioid crisis. And then of course people who are looking at specific areas, right in which long policy might be developed. So correctional settings detention settings, really looking at concerns for dignity and equity in the course of thinking through how people are treated in a variety of different settings and by virtue of their backgrounds right in their histories. So, this is just the smallest mattering of different capstone experiences that we can share with you today. But there's so many more and we've shared the abstracts of all of our capstone students experiences from 2017 through 2023 might see about six years worth of capstone experiences to look at and gain inspiration from, which are available on the Master of Science and Bioethics website. We really encourage you to go take a look to kind of spread your curiosity and think about what would I want to do right with a year's worth of dedicated mentor time to really carry forward specific work in bioethics. And Jesse will follow up as mentioned after today's session with some of these key links so that you can link directly to those resources and produce them at the leisure. And with that, when we actually turn it on over to Samantha Pitkin our education and business trader who will really support students throughout their time in the program to tell you about the various resources through Harvard Medical School, beyond the bioethics specific content that we engage in. Awesome, thanks Kelsey I appreciate it. Yeah hi everybody. So, as a student as part of the Masters of Bioethics program here. There are host of resources that are open to you, both at the university wide level of Harvard through HMS specifically, and then through our Office of Graduate Education, which really manages and governs all of the master's programs here at HMS. And these are wide ranging resources right from career services and career advising all the way down to accommodations and services for students with disabilities. We have a whole variety of things to keep you covered and engaged while you're here. And most recently we just recognized you know our wellness week and mental health days so we send out a whole bunch of resources for those. And then there are plenty of events you can also attend, which we promote through our own center but also you can find them through the Harvard Gazette. And I'm sure Jesse will follow up with some links on these as well but I encourage you to take a look at our website and also take a look at the Office for Graduate Education's website to learn a little bit more about what we offer. Because there truly is a lot and I don't think we could cover it all today. So I'll move on to one of our more specific things that we offer here for our students, which is advising and networking. So all of our students in the program are paired strategically with a faculty advisor upon entry into the program and if you're a one year student or two year student you stay with this advisor throughout your entire tenure through graduation. And I know plenty of our students also interact with their past advisors as alums which is fantastic. So both the advisor is really there to talk not just about your course selection, but also about your program specific goals and your career goals post graduation. And that's why we strategically paired you right to repairing you leaders in the field who have an interest and experience and things that you're also studying, and have indicated to us that you're interested in pursuing post graduation. So that's a really great resource that we offer to everybody, and we highly encourage everyone to take advantage of it. It's also required that you take advantage of it but we expect that you don't just meet with your advisor to the minimum. You really maximize that experience. Kelsey mentioned this when talking about the Capstone experience, but a large part of the Capstone experience is working on your kind of facilitated guided projects with a paired mentor. And this is also something that you're strategically placed with. So our Capstone directors do a fantastic job of gathering all of this survey information that we ask you to provide about what you're interested in pursuing for your Capstone projects, and where you'd like to take it and really taking you know, network of folks in the bio ethics field and matching you appropriately. And these people are also a resource for you throughout your entire time in the program and post graduation. We have plenty of people who have gone on to continue research and continue on with their Capstone projects, even after you know their seminar classes ended. So, I highly recommend taking a look through those abstract booklets and seeing what some of our past students have done with their mentors. And then of course, you know, we like to have fun at the center for bio ethics so there are a lot of social and professional events that we offer. We'll talk probably a little bit more about these but these include things like consortia. We have our annual gay lecture coming up. We have kind of informal virtual networking opportunities for our part time students, and then a whole host of in person activities. This year we're piloting something called the passport program where we're encouraging students to come to as many events as possible, and get these stamps in your passport to kind of keep track of all the fun things you're doing outside of the classroom but there's a lot more surprise incentive at the end of this. So, a whole host of things that are available. And please feel free to check out the events section of our website. There are plenty of things that are open to you as just an affiliate of the community as well. I believe I'm going to pass this back to Kelsey to dive into some more consortia related things. Thank you, Sam. So I hope that you're getting a sense now as to just how robust the support structures here are at Harvard Medical School and in the center for bioethics. And this is really important, right, because the center is incredibly active place, and it's helpful to have some navigation, right, as you think about what sorts of opportunities you want to take on. So the program, right, the master of science in bioethics really takes advantage of the fact that it's situated in this working active center for bioethics. And what I mean by that is that our faculty, our affiliates, they are all actively doing bioethics work, in addition to the teaching that they're doing in the program. And we know that bioethics really shouldn't be practiced in a vacuum, right, the best work happens when we come together to discuss the challenges that we're seeing and potential approaches for solutions as we think through those challenges. So those conversations take place in a number of settings in the center, I think the most prominent is really through this consortia series that we offer, which are all open to our master of science students. And these consortia at the center for bioethics gives students exposure to real time cases, right, challenges, and ongoing work in the field. So really cutting edge contemporary issues that are coming in front of our faculty as they do their work, that demand conversation unpacking and better understanding through community based approach. As you can see we have four types of consortia that are offered through the center students are all encouraged to attend these consortia and learn in real time. I'll just mention the content of the four of them, clinical ethics of course is a consortium in which real time cases are discussed so clinical ethics consultations that are going on in our affiliated teaching hospitals are brought to that So we go through a patient case, and look at the process the considerations that came up and addressing the particular issues in that patient case. We also have a consortium in ethics and research and biotechnology so really looking at cutting edge research on the edge of bioscience, right, the development of brain organ only so it's some of the most contemporary research that is going on and the considerations, moral considerations that arise in not only framing that research but bringing it translationally into the world. We also have consortia and health policy and bioethics so looking at some of the ongoing policy developments, domestically or internationally and considering the moral dimensions of those policy developments in conversation with experts who themselves are framing or informing the policies that are coming out, and then also organizational ethics or a consortium was really focused at the meso level thinking about healthcare institutions, right. In the United States insurance companies that provide health insurance, and how each of these organizations kind of navigate their environment ethically, such that they're creating conditions, right for clinicians within them, or for the patients that surely realize their full, their full responsibilities and their potential for flourishing. So each of these consortia takes up a little bit of a different slice of the bioethics terrain. And as I said, students are encouraged to attend them for real time contemporary learning in bioethics. There's also special tutorials that we've aligned with these consortia for our master's students that allow them to dig deeper into the cases after the public programming. And as I kind of alluded to some of these consortia events aren't that open to the public is part of our work in public engagement and translating bioethics outside of the academy. You can therefore already attend them. Many of them, if you wish, select consortia are not open to the public so for example the clinical ethics consortium as it's bringing real patient, real patient cases and consultations to the table. Consider confidentiality interests as part of our ethical commitment to the patients and teams who are generous enough to share their, their background and experiences with us. So, these consortia are really a core part of the learning that goes on at the center that is extracurricular and can also be curricular as well. We're going to mention another event series that we run from year to year on the next slide, which is the George W. Gay lecture on medical ethics. So, this is a lecture series that we've invested a lot of time in bringing global leaders in the life sciences biosciences health and ethics into the center really informs the life of the center. The George W. Gay lecture is the oldest name lecture HMS hosted by the Center for bioethics. So, we're actually just approaching our next George W. Gay lecture next month in November. And our speaker will be Dr. Stephen Hyman, who is the global leader in genomics neuroscience and mental health. He's currently served as the director of the National Institutes of mental health in the United States and is currently a core member of the Broad Institute, the basic translational science research Institute crossing MIT and Harvard, and directs the Center for psychiatric research. He's a global leader in neuro ethics, and he's going to come talk to us about the science and ethics of behavior control, right as it relates to new technologies and diseases, including obesity and ADHD. His picture is not here on this slide because we're still developing it the kind of banner for his lecture to come in November but you can see from the pictures on this slide just a broad scope of speakers and work is that has been represented by these national and international scholars who have offered the gay lecture over the years. And so we've had scholars, for example, the last years was Dr. Morgan Warren who really leads bioethics to his work in public health ethics as a director of the National Center for bioethics in research and healthcare at Tuskegee University. And that may ring some bells for you. If you're kind of following the field. He's done a lot of work looking at the United States Public Health Service syphilis study that occurred at Tuskegee, and he really raised a lot of concerns about research oversight and atrocities in the United States. And so I mentioned him and I won't tell you about everyone else, but we really have just an incredible group of people who come to enrich the life of the center through their work as named lecturers with the George John and the Gay lecture. On this slide, I will also invite you really to approach this community as an inclusive community and this is one of our core values at the Center for bioethics, and more broadly at the medical school. So we've invested very significantly in developing a more inclusive community over the years, and really living these values of diversity equity and inclusion, and belonging here at the medical school for a number of initiatives which you can see. Perhaps are even too small for you to see but have really been thoughtfully constructed to ensure that all of the students who come to study at the medical school are really supported in your studies here and as members of the community. So, there are a number of resources that have been developed at the level of Harvard University and at the level of Harvard Medical School. But we're also doing this work internally at the center and in the master of science program, very intensively. So, for example, considering how to increase the diversity and of topics and expertise amongst our faculty as well as lived experiences and backgrounds, and the same with our students right and the various areas of emphasis that bioethics brings its attention to. And so just one example you'll see there at the bottom of the slide is that beginning in 2021, we launched a series of programming during black history month in February, with a particular focus on dimensions of black history and bioethics and possibilities for the next generations. In 2023, we looked at the values of respect and healing in bioethics, looking both internally at some important work that Harvard has been doing to restore the remains of enslaved persons that were unearthed on the Harvard campus. And then also some forward looking work in thinking about how to carry commitments to ethical research forward in working with minoritized communities. So there are other examples from the prior two years of these lecture series, which we encourage you to take a look at and consider the various ways in which bioethics intersects with society in ways that have not always been thoroughly unpacked but that we as a center are really committed to developing programming and understanding around. And that's really all in its these kind of robust services to welcome and support students, many of which Sam just kind of shared you shared with you but these include our better together plan, a Harvard University wide plan for diversity and inclusion, as well as strong mental health and loans counseling services. So, with all of that, and you've heard a lot, I'm going to pass it on over to Jesse to give you some more detail about studying in the program. Thanks Kelsey. So what you see here is the tuition and fees for the current academic year. And one thing to note is that for when you apply so for next year you might see these prices rise by two to two and a half percent. If you're covered by your own health insurance, or you plan to be when you enroll in the program, you can waive that health insurance fee, and we'll share a resource after the session all about the cost of attendance and if you're looking to come study in person. Then you'll you can see a list of what we estimate to be your cost of living expenses as well. So on the next slide I think we'll talk a bit about financial aid. If you could switch the slide over. Thanks Sam. So for US citizens and permanent residents of course you have access to federal direct unsubsidized and graduate plus loans and those loans can cover a part of the cost of tuition or they can cover all of the cost of tuition. You also have access to a work study program so for a certain number of hours here on campus and for Harvard, you can work. Now, it's always a good idea to check with your current employer if you do plan to do this part time as there may be a number of HR benefits. Maybe they're willing to pay a certain percentage of your tuition. So it would just be a good idea to call up your employer and see if they have anything available to help you out. For international students. After the session we have a great resource that we'll share with you and that is the Harvard committee on general scholarships. They have a very large list of scholarships by different countries. You know, and hopefully you can find yours and maybe there's something there. We also encourage international applicants to really check with their home country, or check with their institution to see if they have any type of funding. And that can be at your local or even the federal level. So we definitely encourage you to do that. If you're here and you're at Harvard Medical School or you're at one of our affiliated hospitals, there is a 10% discount that you can take advantage of. Now, if you are or you think you're going to be in need of some financial assistance to pay tuition. We do have the HMS Dean's scholarship application and information on that should be available at the start of 2024. So if that's you, I encourage everyone to apply to the Dean's scholarship and that's a 15% reduction in tuition and that also applies for doesn't matter if you're in person or if you're online. So next we can talk about some housing options. And you have of course a couple of options if you're studying with us in person so you can study on campus. And you can live right here near campus near the medical school. And that would be at Vanderbilt Hall. And there's also Harvard at trilogy, which is very close to campus. There is also options to live over in Cambridge, where the Harvard University is where Harvard colleges. You know, and that's that's usually not a problem for anyone because there's a free Harvard shuttle you just show your ID and that shuttle will take you from the Harvard yard right over to the Vanderbilt Hall so right next to where you're going to have some classes. You're also of course welcome to live off campus. And as you can see here there are two links which will send you after and so that Harvard housing off campus is a really wonderful resource. And then, you know, you can live right next to the medical school you can still live in Cambridge or you can live anywhere in the surrounding area of course. Next I think we're going to talk about the admissions process a little bit. So, I think first I would just like to point out right there are two deadlines and so if you're applying for the in person the in person program. That's January 5. And so no matter what if you want to come study with us in person please apply by January 5. If you are studying, if you're applying to study for the online program that deadline is March 1. Now, the requirements for a successful application right is a transcript from all institutions that you have mentioned in your application, your CV or your resume. It is a statement of purpose, three letters of recommendation, and $100 application fee. It is totally optional if you have taken tests recently and you would like to also include those as part of your application. So for international applicants. If you studied at an institution where the primary language of instruction was not in English. Then you will have to submit an English language proficiency test score. And you can do that three ways. So I think if you, you know, if you're an international student you do need to provide us that test if you have any questions definitely please let us know. So now we can give you some admissions tips. So your statement of purpose, that should really cover, it should really be a thoughtful narrative of why you want to study bioethics, why it's important to you and also why here at Harvard. Now, it shouldn't be too short and it shouldn't be too long definitely try and keep it between the 500 to 750 words. So please include an updated resume. And lastly and very importantly start your conversations with your recommenders early. You know you don't want to start it just two weeks before you plan to actually before the deadline. You know, they could get sick, or they could be really busy so so you know start talking to them now make sure you're telling them why you're interested in this program and why it's the right next step for you. Thanks for listening to us for so long so far. Now we are going to go ahead and get started with our live questions and answers. Just a reminder, in that Q&A pop up that you can have there is an answered section so you can review all of the answers so far that we've been typing out. But right now we'll go ahead and answer some of them live and I know that Kelsey is going to answer two of those lives so I'll open it back up to her. Thanks so much Jesse. So we did get a question from a pediatric ophthalmologist and ocular geneticist in our Q&A box here. Really just checking in on how the capstone experience might differ for students who are studying in person versus those who are enrolled in the virtual program. And so I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that each capstone experience is different and so that means that even if you have multiple students studying in person the way that they arrange their capstone experience will differ considerably from one to the next. But for those who are you know studying virtually we have a broad array of faculty who are very familiar with mentoring in a virtual setting. And so inevitably that will mean that many instances you'll actually be meeting with your faculty or your capstone mentor in kind of a live Zoom space. And there are opportunities of course through the virtual verging right or virtual activity to be part of many of the experiences that are happening locally in Harvard Medical School. So whether that's an ethics committee meeting which is happening on Zoom right there are a lot of ways in which students who are virtual are still doing the capstone in a way that is situated right within the local community at Harvard Medical School. But that's really not all so this virtual experience opens up a huge array of additional possibilities for a capstone, including for example, doing work at your own home institution. Right, with the mentorship and support of one of the faculty members at the Center for Biolabics in Harvard. And so that might mean that a good amount of your capstone work is happening locally for you, but the learning experience and the processing learning setting the plan and the agenda thinking it through is really happening in kind of virtual connection with your faculty mentor. So, if you've seen one capstone, you've seen one capstone. You have not seen them all. And I acknowledge as well, this was kind of a second piece of the question that many different countries will have different norms laws, regulations that are relevant for bioethics and so how do we accommodate the fact of diversity within our student body. And this is something that we're really attentive to as we built quite an international program. So, for example, as I mentioned one of our core courses is in health policy and bioethics. That course has something of a domestic flavor, right it really focuses on some of the structures in the United States that frame the work of health in life sciences. And so we also have alternatives for students who are coming to us internationally for them to really develop their interests and understanding of how bioethics process borders. For example, courses in global health ethics, or other forms of kind of systems and population level courses like health and human rights that really allow students to gain the foundational learning that is then applicable to their own settings and their own contexts of law and policy. So I'll thank you for those questions very much. We did have, I think a few more questions in the, in the Q&A here that I think we can answer live for the benefit of all. Shelly go forward Jesse with another one or how do you like to do this. Yeah, but I read this one out loud so from Nadine asks does the part time program allow for students who wish to attend some classes in person. I work hybrid but could arrange to attend some classes in person a few times per month. So, if you're going to take the part time online program and you are a US citizen and you wish to come to campus we do offer J term. And so in January you can come and you can take accelerated elective I think over three to four weeks. And if you know if you're in the United States but you're in the online program yes you're totally welcome to come and do that in person and meet some of your, you know, fellow classmates, and you know and kind of get to be part of the community here on the ground as well. So that's the option that we have for that. Any other questions. Feel free to type those in and any of us are more than happy to answer them. We do have a question from Jeffrey asking about the time commitment associated with the part time virtual program and when those classes tend to meet. Generally speaking, we think of each credit that a student is taking as requiring around two hours or so worth of work. And so generally students might be coming in there for semester and the part time program to take about 10 credits. So the part time program really is part time in the sense that it's thought of as half of a full working week. So if we think about what working is 40 hours per week, we would think of the part time program as requiring 20 hours of dedicated engaging. Now this is inclusive right of the time that you spend in class. Kind of learning in real time, as well as all of the work that you're doing associated with preparing for that class and readings that homework and any associated writing assignments. So all in, right, we're really looking at kind of an 18 to 20 hour time commitment through the part time program. Classes themselves for the part time program do meet, as we mentioned in the evenings, Eastern time, standardly will have core courses, core courses, sorry, around 7pm Eastern, although electives and other courses may start earlier earlier around four o'clock Eastern. And these are only during the weekdays right so no classes are meeting on the weekends the weekends are yours to catch up on what you're preparing for class and to spend time right outside of the master of science and biotics programming. Hi Kelsey. Yeah, so we do have a couple free minutes so if you have any more questions. Now is the time to ask I did want to read one that we answered earlier in the session that I think might be important for everyone so how is the application slash admissions process different for the in person versus the online program format. You can apply to both formats if you are currently unsure. So the requirements for the application that we went over earlier. Those are totally the same for both programs. Really the only difference being the date, the deadline that you know that applies to you. Now you cannot apply to both programs. For the application you can't choose both formats you have to select one. So definitely, you know, carefully review the resources or rewatch the session to think about which ones right for you and any of us, you know are happy to meet with you as well before you submit that application. So we can help you decide if that's something that's that's helpful to you. Now we do have two more questions. In this master's degree prepared with another master's program for dual degrees such as an LM in health law at Harvard. So the answer to that is no, and you know other people can expand on this but especially if you're here full time this is a it's a very, you know rigorous program. It would be September to May so it would be very difficult to kind of, you know, do two at once and have a dual degree sort of program. Now what sort of career opportunities are available to an MBE folder. I'm kind of happy to pass this off to to Kelsey. So as you can tell from the wide range of backgrounds that we described represented amongst our student body. I think people want to do very different things with their master's and bioethics degree. But generally speaking, we tend to see folks who are coming at the early part of their careers for a master's degree soon after their undergraduate learning to then go on to pursue terminal degrees whether it's in medicine, law, PhDs for example, as well as other master's programs for example in social work as they develop their professional footprint and then enter into those spaces so they're doing bioethics through their work in clinical care for example or through their work in law. So that's kind of for the for the earlier career folks, and through that kind of stacking of a professional degree a terminal degree. People are really able to make the most of the bioethics degree in the sense of being able to situate themselves as, for example, a clinical ethics consultant whether they're with the law background or a medicine background in the healthcare space. So increasingly seeing a lot of industry, right bring in people professionally to be thoughtful about the bioethics of the research that is going on in those spaces. So for example, Google has developed a bioethics department, where it's actually looking at how to sustain such an enterprise. We're also seeing with a lot of healthcare technology flourishing that these kinds of roles are really growing in this field. And beyond that of course there's a lot of professional work that goes on in research ethics with respect to institutional review boards. And with respect to creating the frameworks from a legal and policy perspective that support the development of, of ethical research around the world. So here's some of the tracks that people tend to pursue for more kind of mid and later career professionals who are coming to us already with quite a footprint in their professional careers. What we're really seeing for them is that they might either use this degree as a way to kind of pivot right to another portion of their interests, or they might take the training and the work that they've done during the program to parlay that into additional leadership positions within their organizations, leadership positions that allow them to think ethically about strategy policies and approaches to education within their settings that really help them grasp at another kind of component right of their work. It varies quite a bit, I think, depending on what your particular goals are, but the career field for bioethics is increasingly blossoming, especially as we've seen over the last few years. Not only some of the developments in technology with respect to our official intelligence and medicine, but also some of these really critical considerations around diversity, equity and inclusion. And many things that the pandemic helped draw our attention to as we think about the input of ethics in developing hospital and healthcare policies, as well as those policies at the public health level. So just a really dynamic, I think career space for folks in this area. Thanks Kelsey that was really helpful. I know we do have one minute left here so quickly we'll just get to this one last question. Maybe a member of the team here could answer that is there advising options. Excuse me is there advising available for those applying to terminal degrees like law or medicine or is advising more for career placement. Yeah, I'm happy to help answer that. So if that's something you indicate at the kind of application phase, when applying to the program, as well as once you've entered the program we use all of your kind of survey results and interest to help guide your placement with your faculty advisor. And certainly take that into consideration and likely pair you with someone who has experience pursuing an LLM or, you know, a secondary degree beyond the MBE. There are a host of advising workshops offered through the career services center, and some of those maybe workshops that are tailored towards preparing an application for a second higher degree. Some of them are career oriented but it's, we have plenty of students, as Kelsey has mentioned, especially those who are coming to us post grad from their undergraduate program who are intending to apply to medical school or other programs. Once they complete the masters of bioethics here so there are certainly people who can help guide you through that process. And our network is extensive and can certainly assist you with those questions as well. So I think with that we're going to wrap it up and talk just quickly about what the next steps are. So, you know, decide on which program you think that is best for you and those deadlines again are January 5 for in person and March 1 for the online. You know, we do host a lot of public events. There's a lot of stuff on our website and there's a lot of recordings on our YouTube page, all of which will be shared after this session so please check those out. If you want to kind of keep abreast of stuff that we're doing, we do have a newsletter that you're welcome to subscribe to, and then we're on all sorts of various social media. So with that, I just want to thank you all for attending. And thanks to the team with me here today. I think this was a great info session and have a great rest of your day everybody. Bye bye.