Health Administration

Overview

Most Health Administration curriculums combine a liberal arts background with management theory and the practical skills involved in planning and delivering health services. If you major in Health Administration, you'll take courses in management, health care administration, epidemiology, health law, and health finance and economics. You'll learn how to manage the finances of huge organizations, how to deal with personnel, and how to interpret and comply with the maze of laws that effect health care providers, administrators, and organizations. It's a good bet that you'll participate in an internship or some other kind of professional field experience as well, so as to build your professional credentials.

Upon graduation, you'll be prepared for entry-level management positions in hospitals, clinics nursing homes, mental health organizations, insurance companies, public agencies, and many other types of health care organizations.

A lot of schools offer health administration as a master's or doctoral program only, which means that you must get an undergraduate degree first before you can actually specialize in the field. It's a pretty good idea to plan on ultimately obtaining a graduate degree, anyway, though, because you'll make a lot more money and you'll probably find significantly more employment opportunities.