Thank you so much for info. Your email address will not be published. In Taiwan, Singapore) have been caught lying about going to HC when they went to HES. DrGRob, Take, for example, Kenneth Tucceri, a museum studies degree candidate with a … Harvard HES is expanding — correction, extending into a market that is soiled by the specter of low quality. The Extension School – Harvard’s degree-granting continuing education school – has a student population of more than 13,000. A former Indian coworker did it. Have a file backup plan ... just in case. If you take classes for fun or towards a degree, you will learn from some of the most thoughtful minds in academia and in my experience, most of them truly care about their students, HES or otherwise. The result has been an explosion of students and graduates, particularly since 2000. It does not even have the lesser-regarded ACBSP accreditation. Is harvard extension school hard. Will this ever be fixed? I feel it to be fundamental. I like to assume positive intent and feel like most don’t purposefully misrepresent their resume. I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t think this is possible. Times are changing. Classes that had been taught on campus (some for decades) now are online only. The Following search on linkedin.com “site:linkedin.com Harvard Extension School Masters of Liberal Arts” returns more than 26,000 results. I have about 15 MOOCs from HES under my belt, some for certificates and others taken free of charge. Barracuda 1. Unfortunately, the reputation of the Harvard Extension School in the eyes of the public is not as good. I plan on moving my family soon to this major city. In response to the pandemic, Harvard moved all summer school courses to online following suit of earlier action taken in Spring term. Things started to change in the 1980s and 1990s when Dean Michael Shinagel took over the program and implemented major updates and launched new programs. It's not difficult. I know this may read as a generalization–there is truth to the fact that the posturing type is the minority, yet they are significantly louder and forceful than the others. Even Harvard University seems to treats the Extension School like its 2nd-class step child. Thanks but no thanks to those who fault the Extension School and students. JJ asked: I found out that the Extension has been more than 100 years since 1910. Harvard Extension School. Harvard’s use of the word ‘enroll’ and not ‘register’ which have different meanings in Harvard context than the words’s ordinary synonymity. ), Shinagel also ramped up the ability for non-Harvard faculty to teach for credit, added prerecorded Harvard College classes for credit online, and increased the number of online classes allowed for the degree programs. Anything, really, to convince students and grads that graduating from the Extension School is something to be proud of. Kudos to HES streamline admissions process but there needs to be a better way of either integrating or differentiating between Extension students who are non-degree and degree candidates. Part of this is perhaps because few people outside Boston have conversations about the varying schools at Harvard and because HES isn’t well known. It’s been a while since I looked it up, but when I enrolled in Harvard Extension School, the rule was that you could list Harvard University on your resume, as long as you specified that your degree was in “Extension Studies.” So, for example, if I graduate, I will list “Master Liberal Arts in Media Design through Extension Studies, Harvard University.” That way it would align with the formatting of my under grad, which in my case, doesn’t list the school, just the degree and university. So I don’t see the real difference in when (at what age) you are getting your degree – especially if it is a graduate degree – or whether if you are sitting in a classroom or watching the live video. Founded in 1910, Harvard’s Extension School was originally designed to serve local non-traditional students. It is clear, that if an institution – under the Harvard umbrella – offers all the above at the same time, there will be controversies of all kinds. The Extension School is for "non-traditional" students. Given that the extension school has been around for about a century, it sure seems to me that, for whatever reason, Harvard thinks that the extension school is a worthy division to run. The school also offers Graduate degrees. On average that works out to 150 degrees granted per year. Try Stanford Center for Professional Development, it's much better than HES. Almost no employer I know in major cities west of the Mississippi (where I live) is put off by the Extension School identification. (If you’re interested in learning more about the history of the Extension School and the changes he led, I recommend his book The Gates Unbarred.). At the end of the semester, roughly 250 students came away with four credits from the Harvard Extension School and a wider sense, New suggests, of what other possibilities might lie before them. The confusion for many comes from the fact that Extension School is part of Harvard University, the same way the Business School is, or Harvard Law School is. Many people report that they are HES MLA candidates or certificate holders, which in part explains the difference between the actual number of graduates (~6000 vs search results ~26,000). Not surprising legitimate HES alumni who may mis-represent themselves by dropping “Extension” on their resumés, although says more about individual low self-esteem, speaks to HES’s identity crisis and the reason why so many can lay valid claim to having attended Harvard without having earned a degree. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. All that matters to most hiring managers is, what school is at the very top of the diploma or transcript. HES students also have tons of privileges like formalized programs that let you conduct research with Harvard faculty, that let you take Harvard College classes, etc. When I looked at the list of other ALM Management faculty, almost all were professors from other schools (UMass, Tufts, Northeastern, etc.) Amazon, Go to company page Pertaining to a similar matter, what is the goal of pointing out that HBS professors may be prohibited from teaching at HES or having a “doozy” of instructors? Another difference between the bachelor degree programs at Harvard College and HES is Latin honors. There were almost no students from outside the Boston area. If there aren’t many graduates from a university, it’s very hard to build a reputation. Regarding your last comment about the quality of instructors, could you elaborate? But please, go for the right reasons. Thanks for sharing your story. It is one of two Undergraduate degree granting schools at Harvard University; the other being the College. Harvard Extension School is the extension school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Under the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, it offers liberal arts and professional courses, academic certificates, undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as a pre-medical program. So… nothing happens fast in this space, but I see signs of improvement. I agree with much in the post; it is unfortunate that the Extension School isn’t a higher profile. I’ve written about the misrepresentation issue extensively on “What employers think about Harvard Extension School degrees,” and I’ll end this post the same way: HES grads should be proud of what they have accomplished and be proud to list “Harvard Extension School” on their resumes. While there will always be elitists out there who judge HES as a “bastard child” of Harvard College, I don’t think HES students need to be ashamed. I also strongly suggest that you follow the thesis track (not the capstone) and also take real classes with Harvard professors or academics with Harvard affiliations. 5. Until COVID, my full time traditional master’s was entirely in person and my department/school had a noticeable bias and condescension towards online degrees, courses, schools, etc… Since March, my traditional master’s has been entirely online just like my ALM, and I’ve seen a shift in attitudes among both students and faculty in my department. 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