Category — blog

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.

A lot of you might have guessed that I’m working on a CS degree but that I have a particular interest in cryptography.

Crypto people are an odd bunch but I’m one of them so…

How about a song?

I bet that a lot of you think I chose it because it’s Harvard.

You’re only partly right.  The name did have an effect on my choice but only tangentially so.

I was intrigued by the idea that a school like Harvard would offer distance education courses for credit and even more suprised that they offered degrees.

But it was much more important for me to find a good fit between what I was trying to achieve and what the school offered.  To be successful, I needed to join a school that was targeting students who were like me: working adults with full schedules.  For me, Harvard Extension was that school.

I’m often asked why I didn’t choose to attend a local school instead.  The best answer that I can give is that they didn’t have a functioning and robust program for distance education combined with a rigorous academic level.  Distance education is such a huge factor for me that I’m now biased against any school that hasn’t embraced this method of learning.  It saves so much time and solve so many problems for people that I can’t imagine why more schools aren’t taking advantage or expanding their programs.

It isn’t hard to find distance-ed programs.  There are plenty of them that are out there.  The real challenge is finding a school that doesn’t treat them like an afterthought.  That’s why it’s important to focus on the program itself rather than the name on the diploma.  In the end, nobody will care where you went to school.  They are much more interested in who you turned out to be.

I saw this article in the paper.  The choice quote:

When I was 20 an older friend predicted, “Ten years from now, no one will care where you went to school. In fact, no one will ask.” Ridiculous, I thought. She turned out to be right. Where you live between the ages of 18 and 22 won’t define who you are. One day soon, the proud new college decal on your family car’s rear window will start looking a little uncool.

The author is correct.  It’s not really that important where you went to school.  It’s more important that the school is the right one for you.  For me, that happened to be Harvard.  Your ideal school match might be different.  Don’t get too worked up about it.

Of course, when you’re on campus and looking at all those historic buildings, it’s hard not to allow yourself to believe the fantasy of it all.  Just don’t let yourself be fooled.  A degree from Harvard won’t change who you are.  I have to keep reminding myself of that too.

Now that I’m looking for a graduate program to continue my studies, I’m faced with the same sorts of questions: What place is going to be the best fit for me?  Where will I feel most comfortable?  Where do I think I’ll be able to learn the most?

I’m torn between continuing on at Harvard Extension and their ALM in IT program and pursuing the Columbia MS in Computer Science option.  On paper, the Columbia program is very impressive.  I just couldn’t help feeling like the place was just a little bit too cold for me.

I might just be nervous about changing schools at some point.  I just felt like I should put it out there so that people don’t think that the choice of where to go to school is always so automatic (i.e. pick the best name).  Choosing where you will spend the next several years in intense study isn’t a decision to be taken lightly.  Spend some time on it and try to choose wisely.  Don’t let anyone else’s opinion drive yours.  Make your own choice.

After all, it’s your life.

I want to present some information that I find useful regarding the actual set of courses that you must complete to earn a graduate degree at Columbia.  Since I’m primarily interested in the Computer Science major, some of what I will be presenting will be specific to that program but most of the requirements are the same across a number of the engineering degrees.

To begin with, the CS degree requires the completion of 30 credits (or points).  Each class is 3 points.  Therefore, you must complete a minimum of 10 classes to earn your degree.

The recommendation from the CVN staff is to take only one class per semester if you are working full-time.  Since they offer three semesters per year (spring, summer, and fall), that means about 3 years to get the degree if you somehow manage to take 2 courses in one of the 9 semesters.

For the Computer Science Program, there are required courses for the degree and then a set of courses that correspond to the track that you are following.  The following tracks are offered:

Computer Security
Foundations of Computer Science
Machine Learning
Natural Language Processing
Network Systems
Software Systems
Vision and Graphics
M.S. Personalized

For any of these tracks, you must complete at least four Core courses out of the following six:

COMS W4115: Programming Languages and Translators
COMS W4118: Operating Systems
COMS W4156: Advanced Software Engineering
CSOR W4231: Analysis of Algorithms
COMS W4701: Artificial Intelligence
CSEE W4824: Computer Architecture

Since I’m planning on following the Network Systems track, I need to take the following course:

CSEE W4119: Introduction to Computer Networks

That leaves 5 courses for electives.  You can take any 4 of the following classes but you need to make sure that at least (2) are 6000-level courses:

COMS E6181: Advanced Internet Services
COMS E6998: Advanced Internet Routing
COMS W6998: Content Networking
COMS W4180: Introduction to Network Security
COMS W4261: Introduction to Cryptography
COMS W4995: VOIP Security
COMS E6998: Advanced Topics in Security
COMS E6185: Intrusion and Anomaly Detection Systems
COMS E6118: Operating Systems II
COMS E6180: Modeling & Performance Evaluation
COMS E6125: Web Enhanced Information Management
COMS E6901: Projects in Computer Science
ELEN E6717: Information Theory
ELEN E4703: Wireless Communications
ELEN E6761: Computer Communication Networks
ELEN E6950: Wireless & Mobile Networks, I
ELEN E6951: Wireless & Mobile Networks, II
SIEO W4606: Stochastic Processes (or substitute with IEOR-W4106)
IEOR E6704: Queuing Theory and Applications
IEOR E6801: Monte Carlo & Discrete Event Simulation
IEOR E4406: Facilities Location, Routing, Network Design

One class is left for you to take as a free elective.

Here is the shocker: the classes are expensive.   Remember that you are paying graduate school tuition as well as a CVN program fee.  There is no financial aid available for CVN students either beyond what the government provides.

Here is how it breaks down for 2008:

CVN Credit Tuition:                   $1184 per point (Credit Hour)
CVN Audit Tuition:                    $634 per point (Credit Hour)
CVN Fee:                              $375 per course

Non-refundable one-time fees:


Transcript Fee:                       $75
Graduate Admission Application Fee:   $65
Certificate Program Application Fee:  $100
Late Registration Fee:                $100
CVN Withdrawal Fee:                   $75, plus prorated tuition

For example:

A three credit course would be $3552 + transcript fee $75 (one-time) + CVN fee $375 = $4002.

EXPENSIVE.

The degree programs at Harvard Extension School and Columbia Video Network both require you to make a formal application for admission. In the case of the undergraduate/graduate programs at Harvard, the main discriminator is the successful completion of the required three classes with required grades. Because of this, it’s more certain that everyone who applies has been exposed to the coursework and can do the work. GRE scores and recommendations from previous professors are not required.

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Since I’ve had a very varied educational experience, one of the things that I pick up on when looking at schools is their history and how that affects their current positioning. As you may already know, I’m completing an undergraduate degree at the Harvard Extension School. The Harvard Extension School developed out of a series of lectures that eventually led to a whole program for delivering education to working men and women. Thus, HES is rooted in a process that began over 170 years ago and has grown to encompass a wide variety of disciplines in the liberal arts and sciences.

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I was finally able to visit Columbia University to check out their CVN program. I’m preparing a full post that includes a good bit of detail about the program along with some commentary but one thing is certain: it’s a much smaller program than Harvard’s Extension School and that’s both good and bad. More details to follow.

I’m in NYC today at the Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC 2008). A great thing about HES is that it provides you access to really top notch faculty who are experts in their field. For example, one of the professors who taught a class I signed up for is presenting a paper. Since I asked him to help me pick a topic for a senior thesis, it also turns out to be a good time for me to meet up with him and discuss it. I’m planning on doing my paper within the field of cryptography, so going to academic conferences is a good way to get a feel for what other people are working on.

Writing a senior thesis is no picnic. You need to pick a topic that is easy enough to do within a single semester and deep enough that it isn’t just a rehash of stuff everyone already knows. According to my unofficial advisor, this usually means a synthesis of work done by others. In an email to me on the subject he writes:

For theoretical CS theses (or math theses) in the College, producing
original new research results is often not a reasonable expectation, and
thus the originality often comes in the form of synthesis and exposition.

Since I plan on attending graduate school immediately following graduation from HES, I’m looking at this thesis as a first step towards a graduate program. Publication is a key aspect of graduate work and it never hurts to get a feel for how much work is really required. As Ian and others write, it’s often a lot more work than people imagine to do any kind of thesis and deadlines don’t make the process any easier. Many never finish at all. That’s why it’s important to pick a topic that you find interesting and don’t mind spending the time on.

If you are having trouble thinking of a research idea, it never hurts to register and attend a conference in your field. For one thing, you get an idea of what other people find interesting. For another, you get a feel for where the boundaries of knowledge are in your specific discipline. Finally, you get to meet professors and luminaries from other universities. If a topic is presented that interests you, you’ve got an idea of where you can look at graduate programs.

I’ll be at the conference for another day. It promises to be an interesting session.