While anyone can take a class at the Extension School, students who want to study for a degree have to prove they can walk the walk before they are admitted. And on a final note: let’s not get lost in the thinking of how school names and brands are important. The Harvard Extension School and MIT unveiled on Monday a joint initiative that establishes the MITx MicroMasters program as a new pathway for an Extension School graduate degree. So to anyone reading this: go to HES, learn from brilliant minds, challenge yourself to do purposeful work, and build a network. — Sure it is an online degree, but it is from Harvard. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of graduates of any university to accurately describe their academic credentials, not the schools to enforce the standards. HES is not meant to be HC and doesn’t try to be; HES has a clear conscience and is meant for nontraditional students who have unique experiences HC students at their age couldn’t possibly have, and is perfectly-respectable in its own right no matter what stuck-up people say. All Blogs > Harvard Extension School Blog > How Students Balance Full-Time Work and School Earning a degree is one way to get on a path toward a more gratifying career. There is something about adult/continuing education that makes people feel like they have something to prove, perhaps some past failure or setback they can’t let go of, and in my experience they use the Harvard name to convince themselves and others that “see, I’m worthy.” People who talk in class are good, but people who dominate class with their own insecurities are bad. (Let’s bracket aside the problematic issue of “Extension Studies” appearing on the diploma instead of the field of concentration.) Anyone who claims that Harvard Extension School courses are poor quality is making up stories. Harvard extension doesn’t get you anything on your resume. I feel it to be fundamental. txt) or read online for free. 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. Other stuff is just the noise. I want to know if I’ll be able to get letters of recommendation or if I should consider a more traditional route (that is, attending a brick and mortar university, maybe online, due to covid, as a non-degree seeking student and getting letters of recommendation). We’re all learning together and the experience is exponentially more more beneficial as a community dialogue instead of a self-given lecture. It does not even have the lesser-regarded ACBSP accreditation. Graduate degrees in various fields (some of them can be same or similar to those offered by other Harvard schools) Of course making sure, that the admission requirements combined with the requirements for staying in the program, are kept at a comparable level to the other Harvard schools, and that the courses/lecturers are also handpicked by Harvard. 3. As a recent ALM Management alum, your posting was very helpful about needing to be geographically west of the Mississippi. It is one of two Undergraduate degree granting schools at Harvard University; the other being the College. Here’s my answer to the first question about building a good Harvard Extension School reputation. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Go to company page I encourage anyone who disagrees to take a few MOOCs, perhaps CS50x and come back with your certificates in hand and then tell everyone how terrible HES is. What about people with an on-campus MLA with management concentration pretending to have MBA? Thank you so much for info. 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. Qualifying for admission into HES’ bachelor degree program after getting B or better in 2 to 3 classes cannot be compared to Harvard College’s 4.5% acceptance rate last year. 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. I worked on a team to redesign the Harvard Extension School’s website, making it as flexible as their programs of study. An interview during the admissions process to weed out those who are just after the Harvard brand? As I enter the back-nine of my time here at Harvard Extension School, I have realized how grateful I am to be a part of this great institute. If enough people do so and do as well in their careers as they did while at HES, the reputation of the Harvard Extension School will grow … making it easier for all Extension School grads to leverage ALB and ALM degrees to advance their careers. On average that works out to 150 degrees granted per year. All that said, do your research on Harvard Extension or any school before you register for classes. I am riding the T and I can read an advert “Sign-up now for Quincy College classes” next to another advert “Register now for classes at Cambridge College” (which to date is no longer in Cambridge); and sandwich between these and “Take classes at Benjamin Franklin College” (a tech-centric school) is Harvard DCE’s “Enroll now in Extension classes” advertisement. Were these ALM Management classes? ), 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. Harvard Extension School is a place where students from all corners of the globe and all walks of life come together in pursuit of VERITAS. that you as of now just don’t get at peer institutions like UPenn’s LPS. HES saw an opportunity to offer these programs, but unfortunately didn’t think through issues related to standards or the Extension School’s original mission, which was to offer local residents access to Harvard faculty. Times are changing. 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. Admission requirements for HES and other continuing education schools (like UPenn’s LPS) are oftentimes considered less selective, compared to traditional college admissions process. So you can just take some courses, freely, if you want, if you are interested in certain topics. Plus tuition is covered by my company’s tuition assistance policy.Since I will be doing the course while being employed full time I want to know how much time I need to separate to graduate with ~3.5 gpa.Thanks in advance, Go to company page In my graduating class, there were successful professionals as well as students who had completed their undergraduate and earlier graduate degrees at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Georgetown, and the University of Pennsylvania. In Taiwan, Singapore) have been caught lying about going to HC when they went to HES. That said, I will make one observation, not living the in Boston area, the perception that the “Extension School” is of lesser quality by employers doesn’t bear out. 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