Commuting and Harvard Extension

A good friend of mine just finished his first year at HES working towards the ALB.

I was something to celebrate because it also meant that he had fulfilled the minimum requirement of 16 credit hours of on-campus only courses.  This is a new requirement that HES is pushing.  I’m not sure what prompted it but the Extension School has never been comfortable with the idea of handing out degrees to students who never set foot on campus.  Lately, they’ve been tightening the residency requirements for ALB and ALM degrees and we can expect to see more tightening in the future.

When I first started this program in the Fall of 2005, the only barrier to completing the degree from a long distance was EXPO E-25b (Academic Writing, Critical Reading).  The course is only offered on campus in an intimate setting with a limited number of students in each section.  That’s probably appropriate for a writing class.  Since EXPO E-25 is a required course for admission to the ALB program, I had a problem.  I lived in Washington, DC and had to figure out if it was worth the time and expense to commute each week for classes.

I had a number of concerns: scheduling, budget, mishaps, travel, etc.  I didn’t know Boston or Cambridge very well and I didn’t know how reliable the flights were between Dc and Boston.  I didn’t know if it was worth the expense of a hotel every night or if I should “rough it” someplace until morning to catch the first flight out.  I was worried about flight cancellations and delays and about soaring ticket prices.

I was also worried it would be a big waste of time.

Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case.  I ended up making some key decisions:

1. I would fly each morning and return the next.  Flying in the morning reduced the chances of delays that occurred late in the day.  My carrier of choice was Independence Air because they offered flights that were DIRT CHEAP.  I ruled out using the train because of the travel time involved.  Driving was out of the question.
2. I would buy all of my tickets in advance and split them across two carriers to mitigate any concerns I had about Independence Air’s longevity.  (This was a smart move.  Indy Air declared bankruptcy almost immediately after my last flight with them.)
3. I would forgo the hotel every night.  My plan would be to stick around Cambridge until the last train back to the airport where I would count on my laptop to keep my occupied until my flight. This didn’t last: the airport is a lousy place to spend the night.  I ended up finding a late-night bar/restaurant where I could hang out until about 3am and then head to the airport.  This required a taxi ride which wasn’t cheap.
4. If it was possible, I would take an additional course that wasn’t available online on the same evening to maximize the productiveness of my trips to Boston.

In the end, my flights ended up costing me about $150 each.  Without a hotel, my travel costs were about $250 for each week once you counted parking, metro costs, taxi fares, and miscellaneous food and entertainment expenses.  This put my commuting costs at about $4000 per semester.

I ended up only having to do this for one semester and that was plenty.  Toward the end of the semester (the last 4-5 weeks or so), I started getting hotel rooms to make my life easier.  It was money well spent even though I only got about 4 hours of sleep each night.

Fast forward to today: if I were to attempt the same thing, I’d need to do it for an entire academic year.  My 16 flights would now be about 32.  The cost of a flight from DC to Boston round-trip is still about $150-$200.  Parking and metro costs are up modestly.  All in all, the total commuting costs for the required 2 semesters at Harvard runs now about $10,000 from DC.  Obviously, if you live farther away, it’ll be more.

My friend was coming from Detroit.  His flights were about double the cost.  For him, being done with this semester really is something to celebrate.  When he first contacted me about his plans, I did my best to prepare him (and his family) for the long hard slog of the travel and the ALB program.  I gave him the benefit of my experiences and he was able to make some good decisions about how to proceed.  He was aware of the hardship and planned for it.  His success directly follows from that planning.

My point is that commuting from a long distance isn’t impossible if you plan it through and make the arrangements necessary to handle the stress of travel and the costs.  If you don’t, you’ll probably figure it isn’t worth the hassle and give up.

It’s not easy.  From my front door to Harvard Square, it’s about 4 hours if everything goes right.  When it doesn’t, it’s about 6-8 hours.  That leaves me with about 12-24 hours in Boston before I was on another flight back.  My days were about 36 hours straight, after which I would crash into bed.

I had the luxury of a job with relatively flexible hours.  My friend didn’t.  He made the smart move of getting approval from his employer to modify his hours so he could do the travel.  Even still, he had to head to work right after he landed home.  That means that his day was actually much longer than mine.

It’s amazing what we can do when we really want something.  It isn’t often that you hear of self-sacrifice when it comes to attending school, but it isn’t entirely uncommon either.  Many, many people work long day jobs and then spend all evening on-campus in class to finish a degree.  Students at HES are no exception.

But it is instructive to see just how far a person will go to attend this prorgram and that speak volumes about its quality and the experience it offers.  If you live within a plane flight of Boston and you think you might be willing to give it a try, I encourage you to contact me and ask what I think of your plans.

Ultimately, its going to be your own determination and drive that are the deciding factors.  Not money, not distance.

And when you are thinking of tackling some difficult task, you’ll remember how you accepted the challenge of school and succeeded.

That will make all the difference in the world.