Category — blog

Ian over at Harvard Extended has posted an editorial criticizing the Harvard Extension School push into distance education.  Specifically, he questions whether a degree program composed primarily of classes taken remotely via the Internet can ever really compare to the learning experience offered by in-person attendance on the campus, particularly the Harvard campus.  He notes that out of about 600 classes, more than 100 online classes are offered at HES, with a clear uptick in the number year-over-year.

There is some evidence that the Extension School shares at least some of his concerns.  Last year, the ALB program was modified to include a requirement for 4 (out of a minimum of 16) courses to be completed that are offered on campus only.

I’d like to rebut that argument and make the case that distance education at Harvard can provide a comparable experience if we carefully consider our definition of what a satisfactory Harvard Experience actually represents.

Ian writes:

…permitting students in some programs to get most of their degree credit sitting in front of a computer terminal, often with few opportunities for direct interaction with faculty and classmates, is a mistake. Two of the Extension School’s most popular degree programs — the undergraduate ALB and the graduate ALM in IT — allow students to complete 88% and 90% of their coursework online, respectively.

His concern seems to center on the premise that there are fewer opportunities for direct interaction with faculty and other classmates, and that this necessarily constitutes a somewhat lesser experience than would otherwise be provided by a program that was composed of entirely on-campus coursework.  I think that this reasoning is flawed.

First, there is no evidence that in-class presence helps students to develop a deeper understanding of course material.  While presence on campus might help a student feel as if their connection to a university is stronger, my own experience has been that being in class is only marginally better than viewing the same lecture over the Internet.  Indeed, I am completing the vast majority of the 64 hours that I need for the ALB from my home in Washington, DC.  As part of my experience at Harvard, I regularly travelled between DC and Boston to take classes and exams on campus and I had the opportunity to sample both modes of learning from the very beginning.  I prefer the online courses.

If my grades are any indication, I’m doing far better in my online coursework than I ever did in my on-campus coursework.

I took a number of courses in which I depended heavily on the TFs (teaching fellows) to answer questions when I had them.  I didn’t get a chance to meet any of the other students from most of those courses.   Surprisingly, that didn’t seem to have any effect on my ability to absorb the material.  With occasional help from the TF’s, I managed to pick up enough material to earn A’s (or A-’s) in nearly all of my classes.

I’ll note that there were a few instances where the TF’s seemed to be either too preoccupied or too difficult to communicate with.  In those situations, I learned that the best option was to simply drop the course and replace it with another.

But I’ll note that in no case was I ever at a disadvantage because I wasn’t able to question a fellow student for help with the material.  I certainly had to be more diligent about making use of the resources I had to grasp the material, but I didn’t seem to suffer grade-wise because I was working alone.

Furthermore, I didn’t see a great deal of class participation in the classes I took on campus.  If there was an upside to taking an on-campus class, it was the ability to buttonhole your TF or professor about some assignment you were waiting to receive back.

And leads me to the the point that I think that Ian’s really trying to make: how much of Harvard do you really get if you’ve only ever seen a few of your professors online and you only know a couple of fellow students in your program, or none?

Of course, the same argument could be made about the Extension School as a whole.  As an ALB candidate, I’m never going to live in the residence halls, arguably one of the best maturation and networking opportunities available to anyone under the age of 22.  Does that make my degree worth less as an educational credential?

I’d argue that for a significant proportion of classes, the interactive component of on campus presence isn’t much help.  I allow that there are many fields in which essentially the entire class is about teamwork and interaction with fellow students.  Management classes and language instruction are two notable examples, but I suppose that there are others.

Far more important (for me at least) is how effective Harvard Extension is at transmitting knowledge through an asynchronous medium like the Internet.  On that score, I think they’ve done a fine job.  With very few exceptions, I’ve felt that my professors and TFs have been very responsive.  In one particular case, I had a TF take my call at 11PM one evening.  I’ve had the opportunity to meet my professors in person after taking their class and felt as if I knew them well after having only ever seen them through a window on my PC.  I recognized one of my TFs from another class walking down the street and introduced myself one random afternoon while visiting Cambridge.

So, at least in my case, I’ve managed to nurture and maintain a connection to Harvard (even going so far as to decide I have a favorite professor) even though my coursework was largely completed online.

What could be wrong with that?

I understand Ian’s concerns: that the Extension School is moving too fast in expanding the reach of distance education and that this will detract from the high quality of instruction (and candidates) that the degree programs are known for.

Criticism, offered in good faith, is a good thing.  It’s important that the quality of the degree programs is maintained, even if that means forgoing some revenue or tempering the growth of the school.

My experience and my intuition tell me that these concerns are premature.  For me, the greater concern is how to increase the feeling of community and connection at the Extension School without compromising the non-traditional orientation.  If the goal is to reach further than the walls of Harvard Yard, then some form of distance education is clearly going to be in the mix.  Pointing to distance learning as the problem is simply not productive.

Thus, the better question to ask is if a program that was composed entirely of online coursework could ever be considered a true Harvard degree.  I submit that it can.

If we examine the subset of classes that are taught to Harvard College students on campus and to Harvard Extension students via distance ed, we see that they perform roughly on par with each other.  Ian acknowledges this himself.  As a somewhat crude example, this seems to indicate that it isn’t really the distance aspect of instruction that is important for learning.  What matters far more is the quality of the professors and the TFs and their own comfort with the technology.

By far, the professors I have had in my distance classes seem keenly aware of this fact.  They understand the limitations of time and place and seek to transcend them with technology.  It is possible to compensate for the sensory deprivation that seems to follow distance education.  I, for one, don’t agree that some sort of virtual reality environment that replicates a lecture hall is needed.  What could be more silly than sitting in a chair at home manipulating an avatar sitting in a chair in a virtual classroom?

In the real world, commercial enterprise has embraced each evolution of technology that eliminates the need to travel in order to communicate or conduct business.  From the telegraph to the telephone and TV, conference calling, video conferencing and the Internet, the value of eliminating the need to schedule a meeting among a widely dispersed group of individuals is clearly recognized by many.

Why should education be any different?

If your goal is to have some sort of experience, then maybe distance learning isn’t right for you.  It will be impossible with current technology to replicate the experience of sitting in a cramped chair huddled with a few others trying to master some arcane subject.  If instead your goal is to develop a deeper understanding of some particular subject or skill without the extraneous aspects of college life, then you might give distance ed a try.

Taking a distance education class at Harvard is no less valuable an experience than sitting through one on-campus.  It’s simply a different experience.  It’s up to the administration to make that a good one.

I registered for my final semester of classes at Harvard Extension.

I was only going to take one course on Formal Systems and Computation (CSCI E-207), which is a taped version of a regular Harvard course.  I changed my mind when I spotted this class:

CSCI E-168:

This course is a thorough introduction to Ruby and Ruby on Rails, focusing especially on the major strength of Rails: rapid prototyping and iterative development. The course culminates in the design and implementation of a web-based software product.

I’ve been toying around with Ruby on Rails for a few months now.  It essentially a relatively flexible way to build a dynamic website application.  Lots of websites use it and it’s VERY popular.  I’m excited about this course because it looks like it will combine some traditional academic rigor about representational data models with a useful, practical skill that can immediately translate into increased productivity and opportunity for entrepreneurship.

This strikes me as a notable strength of the Harvard Extension program orientation compared to the College: a focus on combining practical skill-sets with exposure to academic critical thinking methodology.  If a student is only interested in gaining some specific skill or exposure to some specific technology, that’s implicitly provided in the coursework.  But if another student is more interested in the more expansive objectives of how this particular technology/method/topic fits into the broader picture, that’s also provided.

Harry Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College and a Computer Science professor, writes in Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education:

At Harvard, at least, students are bewildered by how the university proudly denies preprofessional curricular options to students who in great numbers will enter the professions after they graduate.[14]

and:

The tensions between the objectives of students and the ideals of professors are evident everywhere.  The Harvard Economics Department won’t teach accounting - it once did but dropped the course even as its faculty and course offerings expanded.[204]

If you want learn accounting at Harvard, you have to take it at the Extension School.  It’s interesting that this is the case, but it does demonstrate that if what you want is some amount of practical skill combined with an opportunity to pursue a pure academic endeavor, Harvard isn’t your best choice.  You can’t major in Business Administration at Harvard.

It’s helpful to keep in mind that Harvard is a liberal arts school.  Their program is tailored to deliver a broad mix of instruction on a variety of topics.  The idea is to build a well rounded individual with the tools to think critically about the world they live and work in.  I’m a fan of this approach but pure liberal arts instruction doesn’t often match the specific needs of the population most likely to be interested in attending school while managing a career.

In a nutshell, this is one thing I love about Harvard Extension.  In a single semester, I’m taking two classes which are both about computer science, but with entirely different objectives.

One course (Formal Methods) is about the theoretical mathematical underpinnings of modern computer science.  We’ll never touch a computer in the course; the work is all about doing proofs of computational possibility and complexity.  It’s not practical in any sense of the word if you are trying to learn how to program, but it’s absolutely essential if you want to know whether you can even solve a problem or not with a computer.

The other (Ruby on Rails) is about getting some real work done.   I have a feeling that this course, combined with some traditional technical ability, would prepare a student to launch their own web firm.  I have some ideas about things I’d like to do on a website but without a structured framework to undertake the job of actually learning how to get it done, I’d probably waste a lot of time.  This course is almost a sort of boot camp on Rails for me.

I’m excited.

I just completed my second to last semester at Harvard Extension.  If I continue on the path I’m currently on, I only need two more classes (one semester) to qualify for the ALB degree.

It’s been an interesting experience.  One remaining matter is the decision to pursue a senior thesis reading and research project for my last semester.  Doing so would probably make me a good candidate for graudate programs.

One thing I’d do differently would be to get my language requirement out of the way earlier.  I had an opportunity to get that requirement taken care of much earlier and I deferred it till late in the program.  Bad idea.  If you go the HES way, take care of the language requirement early.  It’s impossible to do it via distance and a pain to complete at HES because all of the classes meet twice per week.

Now I just need to get some more paperwork out of the way.

One of my former Teaching Fellows at Harvard Extension recently earned his Ph.D in Computer Science.  His advice is particularly valuable to me, not just because he has progressed further in his studies than I have, but because he also spent some time in the Internet industry before returning to complete a graduate program.

To be sure, he is certainly a full measure more talented and accomplished than me.  Nevertheless, he has always been generous with his support and good advice and for that I’m thankful.

That’s why when I started to think that an MBA would be a better fit for me than the MSCS, I fired off an email to him asking if he had a similar moment where he needed to choose between an MBA and a research-oriented graduate program.  He replied:

I did, but it was a PhD versus an MBA.

I think the PhD was a better decision for me.  As an entrepreneur, it says far more than an MBA — it proves that I can complete large projects, do independent, meaningful research, and my research was especially marketable.

But I’m not sure about an MS versus an MBA.  It depends on your career goals.  If you want to be a technologist, get the MS.  If you want to be in management, get the MBA, and you’ll be attractive because your technical background will help you manage technology more effectively.

I happen to thing that this last piece of advice is particularly good.  While I’m interested in the pure research aspects of computer science, my real passion has been applying those results to real-world problems.  Industry has a lot of those problems and a person can do a lot of good (and create some great companies) if they can figure out what parts the body of research available to them apply to any particular problem and come up with a match.

So for now, it looks like an MBA is in my future.

Choosing an MBA Program

Now starts the hard part: choosing a program.  I’m almost 40, and the idea of leaving my job (and the salary) to return to school for a couple of years doesn’t seem attractive.  Business school is expensive and forgoing a salary during that time would be far too painful.  My reading indicates that a lot of people feel the same way.  An explosion of limited-residency/part-time/online MBA programs clearly indicates this.  People do not want to leave work to attend school if they don’t have to, especially if they are well situated in their careers like I am.

The upshot of selecting a part-time or limited/no-residency program is that the opportunities to engage in networking with fellow students is pretty limited.  The conventional wisdom (such as I understand it) is that a fringe benefit of a cohort type B-school program is that you meet and interact with your classmates closely to do do the coursework.  Consequently, the part-timers don’t get the same esprit de corps that the full-timers do.  If you’re looking to change careers (or justy your job) that might be harder to do if you’ve never met or worked closely with any of your classmates.

Another thing about the part-time programs is that they aren’t the gold standard for B-School education.  That title is still held by the full-time, resident programs operated by the top schools.  This has been less the case in recent years but remains a factor for things like recruiting and advancement in top companies.  Executive MBA programs have supplanted the part-time MBA programs and have tightened the admissions requirements lately but don’t seem to have achieved the prestige level of the top full-time programs.

What this means for me is that I have to decide if the gains from trying for a top program are worth the resulting lifestyle changes (in employment status and location) that would accompany an admit letter.  Right now, I’m not sure that’s the case.

Online MBAs

A close cousin to executive and part-time MBA programs is the completely online MBA.  These programs replace the classroom with internet-based instruction and meet only to administer exams or do group projects.  In some cases, there are no residency requirements.

I’m very partial to online education.  When it’s done well, it can provide all of the instruction value along with a quantum leap in flexibility and cost savings.  Of course, all of the problems with part-time MBA programs are likely to be present in spades in the completely online programs.

Student Community

My experience at Harvard Extension has shown me that the hardest part of online education is the complete lack of community among students.  There have been attempts at community building at HESA but even those programs seem to forget the online community.  My efforts to arrange for a voice teleconference option for the Pre-MBA group at HESA were never acted upon by the leaders of that group.  I got the same result with the Pre-Law group.  The email lists are always silent and announcements about on-campus events seem to be sent out only days before the actual event.

If part of my grade were dependent on being able to reliably contact and interact with my fellow students, as is likely to be a requirement for any online MBA program, I’d be pretty peeved if the school hadn’t taken serious steps to develop and foster an online community.

A couple of classes at HES (The History and Ethics of Biotechnology stands out among them) went to great lengths to mandate a certain level of participation in online communities dedicated to the class.  I can only hope that my research into the range of online MBA options available to me will show a similar focus.

So for right now, it looks like an executive or part-time MBA would be my best bet, with a strong preference for a limited-residency/no-residency program.  If it looks like the online community at a particular school is strong enough to support a robust group interaction, I’ll probably go with that option.

Next week I’ll talk about costs.  B-School is expensive and I still need to figure out my budget for classes.

HESA, the Harvard Extension Student Association, ostensibly exists to provide some measure of community to the Extension School population.

From the website:

Our Mission is to build and maintain a sense of community among our students. In partnership with many other organizations on campus, we provide a variety of social and educational events and forums that will enrich your life and your experience here at Harvard.

This past year has really been a great year for HESA.  Our outgoing president, Carlos De La Rosa, did his best to bring a sense of purpose and professionalism to the job.  He and his team managed to get some policies changed, sponsor some interesting and successful events, and generally elevate the operation and standing of what was (in my opinion) a pretty poorly run organization.

To give you an idea of just how poorly it functioned, until Carlos took over, there were few if any regular communications with the community, a website that was infrequently updated, and few other signs of life.  My take was that being the HESA president looked good on a resume and tended to draw those who were looking to punch a ticket rather than drive any meaningful positive change.

This year we actually had some fundraising activity, some well run events that were of particular interest to the broader Extension community, and a website that was actually designed to communicate.

Now that Carlos’ term is over, we have a new president, Ashley Pollack, who won in a landslide victory over her opponents.  Her candidacy was certainly buoyed by the endorsement of Carlos on the popular extensionstudent.com web forum.  My hope is that she continues the example set by Carlos and drives the organization to better serve the interests of the population at large.

But I have two concerns and I’d like to air them here:

• When Carlos took office, he had a roster of candidates that supported his efforts and ran as a part of his campaign.  In essence, we got a team of people instead of just Carlos.  As far as I can tell, Ashley is running alone.  There has been little mention of who she plans to add to her team to achieve her objectives.  If there is anything truer in politics, it’s that the job is often a lot bigger of a headache than it’s worth.  Getting things done is a lot easier if you have help.
• While Carlos did a better job of communicating with students, there was little attention paid to those of us who can’t attend on-campus functions because of distance or scheduling.  Promised video of events never made it to the HESA website and there is little explanation for the delay or absence.  Since distance education is a big part of the program’s attractiveness, there has to be some way to include those of us in far off locales.  I made several suggestions to other HESA groups to embrace simple tools like audio teleconferencing as a means to share a meeting beyond the campus but nothing ever came of that suggestion.

I’m hopeful that this upcoming year will be a successful one for HESA.  It’s my last year as an Extension student and I’d like to see us moving forward as a collective whole with some sense of community than as the disconnected islands of interest that we are largely today.  For what it’s worth, extensionstudent.com really is home to a large and vocal part of the student population.  It’s a large community that has grown organically over the past year and it shows no signs of slowing down.  In many ways, it’s succeeded where HESA has not.

I wish Ashley well.  If I ever get the chance to, I’ll tell her these things myself.  I just hope she’s willing to work with me to make HESA a better and more complete representation of the entire student body.

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.

Perhaps some of you are wondering why I haven’t been posting more frequently.  Part of the reason is that the end of a semester is always a busy time.  Another part is that I’m getting very close to the end of my program.

I’ve been immersed in thought lately.  And not in a good way, either.

When I started thinking about going back to school, I set a very simple goal for myself: finish.  That’s it.  I didn’t really concern myself with a specific time or a date.  I just told myself that this time I would make it all the way through and get the degree done.  I thought that was a pretty good goal.

Somehow that didn’t seem to be enough for me so I set myself another goal: get into graduate school.

Naturally, since the focus of my undergrad program was mainly computer science, I decided to take a close hard look at graduate programs in that field.

Now I’m wondering if that’s wise.

I’m old enough now that I have to weigh the opportunity costs of choosing one path versus another.  Once you near middle age, it’s becomes clear that time has value that isn’t fully appreciated by the young.

Graduate school is a big time and financial commitment.  If I start a program, I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes that I made with my undergraduate degree.  I want to pick the right program and be done with it.

I also want it to have a measurable and demonstrative effect on my life and career.  Lately, I have been having a hard time justifying the expense and allocation of time that a graduate program in Computer Science would demand.

When I asked around to people who I know and respect, they all suggested that I take a good look at getting an MBA.  Their reasons were pretty simple: it will make me a better candidate for advancement in my current career and it will probably make me more marketable if I choose to change my career.

Another point that they brought up was that my experience in business would all be relevant as I sought to apply them to my educational journey.

Of course, I always thought that I was doing this for strictly personal reasons.  Try as I might though, my career has found a way to make itself a priority again.

SO…it’s going to be an interesting story if I end up choosing one versus the other.  I’m screening possible schools and getting ideas.

I also have to take the GMAT.  Yech.

Stay tuned.

I recieved my Harvard Class Ring a few days ago and wanted to share some of the photos.  The ring was shipped from Balfour in a nondescript DHL package along with a receipt.

It comes in a nice wood (lacquered?) box that is common for rings of this type.

The extension crest is on one side.

And Harvard Gate is on the other.

The Harvard Veritas crest is on the top.

Overall, a very nice ring. I purchased the 14K “large” ring with the antique finish.  There is also an engraving on the inside (which I won’t publish).

I was unsure about purchasing the ring.  I’m not into jewelry much and I don’t wear other rings but I decided that it was worth the cost to have a ring I could wear when I wanted to instead of wishing I had one later down the road.

I’m pretty happy about it.

In a post over at Harvard Extended, Ian discusses the subject of “legacy” admissions.  In case you’re wondering, “legacies” are Harvard College admits who get in because of some special connection to the college that supercedes the traditional academic criteria that serves as an admissions filter.

It’s no secret that families who donate significant sums of money to the college can, in a sense, buy their child’s way into Harvard.  Although the term legacy implies a long familial line of Harvard alumni, my sense is that the program is mainly a way to reward alums who donate much and do so frequently.

Programs like these tend to weaken the assertion that only the best and brightest find a place at Harvard College.  As much as they like to belive that this is the case (and it is, in large part) the fact that there are students at the school that didn’t merit admission save the “Z-list” makes the whole idea of an elite cadre of undergrads just so much sophistry.

What is even more interesting is that someone who claims to be a graduate of the AA/ALB program is posting comments that denigrate the program that he graduated from:

HES is nothing in comparison to the college, obviously. HES is a diploma mill with very little/weak academic standards. What does work the FAS is the fact not many people actually finish their academic work and get a degree and of course HES is a cash-cow; I’d venture to say things would change if they were awarding 1000 plus “diplomas” err, oops, I meant “degrees” at HES.

First, I’m doubtful that this student is really a graduate of the ALB or AA programs.  If he or she is, then it’s likely that they didn’t see the life-change that they expected from completing the program.  I’ve often said that a degree from HES isn’t going to change your life; it’s mainly a way to acquire the tools to change it yourself.

Second, I’ve made a special effort to take classes that are Harvard-only classes.  These classes are offered to HES students via distance-ed and consist of the exact same material and exact same grading standards that the College and GSAS students experience.  I took GOVT E-1780 (International Political Economy) from Jeffry Frieden and asked him directly if the grading standards were different between the College and HES.  His one-word reply: “No.”

I completed several other courses at HES that followed this model.  The classes aren’t impossible but do require study.  You can’t just coast through and get a decent grade.  You have to complete your assignments and you have to keep up with the reading.

But it isn’t impossible by any stretch.

Which brings me to my final point: people seem to have the idea that Harvard College is a difficult school to attend.  I don’t think this is the case.  Harvard College graduates 97% of its students.  If the program were really as challenging as people think it is, I would expect that number to be a little lower.  MIT has a graduation rate of 89% and Caltech is 83%.  I doubt that anyone would argue that MIT or Caltech admit poor students.

If Harvard admits 3000 students every year in its freshman class, is the 3001st student unqualified?  What do you say to that student when they learn that they were excluded from the incoming class because of a “legacy” admit?

So what we are left with is an undergraduate program that (if you are lucky enough to find yourself admitted to) presents a 97% change of successfully completing.  This either speaks to the effectiveness of the admissions process or the lack of difficulty of the program.  I wont speculate on which is the case.

Like most schools, you can seek out the easier classes or the harder ones during the course of your program.  In the end, both types of students get the same degree.

I do note that my grades in the Harvard College only classes aren’t appreciably different from the grades that I received in the HES-only classes.  I’m only one example, but it is something to think about.  I don’t fear the College courses because I think they’ll be too difficult.  My fears are more likely to be centered around a professor or TF who doesn’t know how to respond to email in a timely fashion.

Are there more students in HES that can’t do the work?  Certainly.  You can’t have an open-enrollment program and not encounter the occassional toe-dipper who is trying to see if they can pass muster and get a Harvard degree.  The perceived value of the Harvard credential is going to draw these kinds of people.  Both the length and the rigor of the program tends to weed these people out of the degree programs by the time that they reach their second or third semester.  The easy courses quickly become less numerous as you progress.

I do believe that there are more examples of people like myself who lost their way on the path to a degree when they were young and are only now getting around to finishing it up.  Most of the students in my on-campus classes were bright and enthusiastic.  Many of them had similar stories to my own.

But I’m less inclined to believe that a Harvard College graduate is some mythical wünderkind and more inclined to think of them as a kind of fortunate opportunist.  I don’t mean that in the negative sense; I see them seeking a credential that will return far more in dividends than the effort required to obtain it.  That’s my point.  I don’t think the classes are so difficult that any decent student can’t succeed in them.

My experience at HES has been very positive.  It hasn’t been easy, and it’s not a diploma mill by any stretch of the imagination.  If you started from scratch and did nothing else but attend classes at HES, the program would take 8 semesters (4 years) to complete.  You would have written close to 14 papers of serious length and depth and attended over 1000 classroom hours.  You will have likely completed over 100 problem sets of varying difficulty and your GPA is likely to be somewhere shy of a 3.0.

The HES ALB program is a serious one and deserves the respect afforded to all serious academic programs.