4 ms·

I got my Master's at Harvard Extension School. It doesn't feel right to say "Harvard", though I sometimes say "Harvard" if I don't want to get into the usual co

I got my Master's at Harvard Extension School. It doesn't feel right to say "Harvard", though I sometimes say "Harvard" if I don't want to get into the usual conversation about what the Extension School is, but only if it's not important to the discussion and there's no harm done. Sometimes random online forms ask what college I attended for no good reason, so I'll just type "Harvard"; if Mark Cuban would ask, I'd always say "Harvard University Extension School" to avoid misleading him.

stavros 3y ago
What's an extension school? That part of the article confused me. Is it not a part of Harvard?
- kelnos 3y ago
  It's usually a satellite (or even virtual) location (or locations) that the parent university administers. Extension schools usually cater to past-college-age adults for continuing education, are often part time, and are usually commuter schools (and don't really have a live-in campus culture). I can't speak to any differences in quality of instruction, but I wouldn't be surprised if the admissions requirements at most extensions schools weren't as strict as for the parent university (which makes sense, because people attend for very different reasons, often at different stages of their lives, with different backgrounds than you'd expect for a high school grad going to an undergraduate university). I think, though, that the disdain for saying "I went to Harvard" when you've attended the extension school is rooted more in emotion/ego/pretension than anything else. A "real" Harvard attendee might not actively look down on someone who attended HES, but would probably scoff at the idea that they "went to Harvard". Higher education has a lot of weird social signaling and other crap that's hard to unpack. But I do think that the accepted meaning of "I went to X" is that you physically attended classes full-time at the university's main campus. Saying that, when you attended their extension school, is at best misleading.
  - supportunions 3y ago
    [dead]
  - optymizer 3y ago
    This pretty much sums it up. As an immigrant, I had to work full time and study late at night. In terms of differences, at the time, half the courses were the same as Harvard Engineering School, and those were the best courses in the program with the best professors. The other half felt like they were just filling up the curriculum. Overall I'm a much much better developer after having attended Harvard Extension School, though I went for the hardest courses. It's certainly possible to skate by and get your degree by only taking easy courses.

stavros 3y ago

What's an extension school? That part of the article confused me. Is it not a part of Harvard?

kelnos 3y ago
It's usually a satellite (or even virtual) location (or locations) that the parent university administers. Extension schools usually cater to past-college-age adults for continuing education, are often part time, and are usually commuter schools (and don't really have a live-in campus culture). I can't speak to any differences in quality of instruction, but I wouldn't be surprised if the admissions requirements at most extensions schools weren't as strict as for the parent university (which makes sense, because people attend for very different reasons, often at different stages of their lives, with different backgrounds than you'd expect for a high school grad going to an undergraduate university). I think, though, that the disdain for saying "I went to Harvard" when you've attended the extension school is rooted more in emotion/ego/pretension than anything else. A "real" Harvard attendee might not actively look down on someone who attended HES, but would probably scoff at the idea that they "went to Harvard". Higher education has a lot of weird social signaling and other crap that's hard to unpack. But I do think that the accepted meaning of "I went to X" is that you physically attended classes full-time at the university's main campus. Saying that, when you attended their extension school, is at best misleading.
- supportunions 3y ago
  [dead]
- optymizer 3y ago
  This pretty much sums it up. As an immigrant, I had to work full time and study late at night. In terms of differences, at the time, half the courses were the same as Harvard Engineering School, and those were the best courses in the program with the best professors. The other half felt like they were just filling up the curriculum. Overall I'm a much much better developer after having attended Harvard Extension School, though I went for the hardest courses. It's certainly possible to skate by and get your degree by only taking easy courses.