Master's Degree Online from Harvard Extension School. There are few things that will give you a better boost in. Modern technology is making education surprisingly easy to obtain and. That model doesn’t really work anymore. This can be be formal and informal, but in this article we are going to look at my experience getting a formal education that leads to a degree while working full time. In particular, we are going to look at getting an online masters degree. Who Should Participate. The Program is designed for physicians in administrative leadership positions in academic health centers. Potential participants include. Stefan Thomke, an authority on the management of innovation, is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The Washington State University online Executive MBA is designed to challenge you to go beyond your comfort zone, improve your advanced business. 2017/2018 Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (Fully Funded to study in Harvard. News items, upcoming events, admissions requirements, faculty listing and publications. Meet our Texas Diabetes Institute Executive Team Ralph A. DeFronzo, MD serves as Deputy Director of the Texas Diabetes Institute. P.H., is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and Chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Harvard University is a private, Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established 1636, whose history, influence and wealth have made it one of. This is a pretty long articles so here is an executive summary: You can get an online master’s degree from Harvard through their Extension School and take the majority of your classes over the internet. The entrance process is simple and the cost is much lower than similar programs. My Background. Five years out of high school, I had earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music composition. During that same period, my summer job at the local hospital had grown into a full- time network administrator position covering two hospitals and a handful of clinics. Technology skills came very easily for me. My music education had been very valuable in learning to work with people, learning to concentrate and learning to understand abstract concepts. Still, it seemed like a good idea to get more formal education related to technology. After looking at several programs, I finally settled on the ALM in IT program from Harvard’s Extension school. The ALM in IT was one of the few master’s degrees where all the required classes were available online. The teachers were great and the class experience was far superior to the correspondence- style classes I had seen people slaving through from other schools. Harvard Extension School. Founded in 1. 91. Harvard’s Extension School was originally designed to serve local non- traditional students. It is now under the Continuing Education division. The Extension School is the only of Harvard’s thirteen schools to offer both graduate and undergraduate degrees and also the only to offer an associate degree. Anyone can sign up to take a course without being admitted to a degree program. The primary qualification for admittance to a master’s degree program is the successful completion of 1. GPA. Some of the programs now require that specific classes be taken as part of those first 1. These are usually the classes that are the hardest. This is actually a very kind requirement. You don’t want to get admitted by taking the 4 easiest courses and complete most of the coursework only to discover that one of the classes you left to the end is well beyond your ability. Memorial Hall that serves as the dining hall for freshmen. I had a bit of a scare right after I finished my fourth class. They came out with a new requirement for the ALM in IT master’s degree program that one of your first four classes must be the Theory of Computation (or similar class). When I asked about it, they explained that the requirement didn’t apply to current students. After taking the class, I understand why they created this requirement. It was very challenging for someone with more music background than mathematics. It wasn’t necessarily hard; it just required learning a new way of thinking that I hadn’t been exposed to before. There is a beautiful simplicity in letting students take classes to determine admittance. There are no admission tests or GRE scores required. Admission is based on your ability to complete the course work–proven by your ability to do well in four classes. Once you’ve passed the four classes, you can apply to be admitted to the master’s degree program. This involves an application and an essay. The vast majority of people taking classes through the Extension School do not graduate with a degree. I believe it is 9. A high percentage are probably just taking a few classes and never even apply for a degree program, but I’m sure quite a few are pursing a degree and never complete it or run into a required class that they simply can’t handle. Distance Education Class Format. Since I don’t live anywhere near Cambridge, most of the classes I took were online. The online master’s degree classes follow a live class. Most of the time, you can physically go to class if you’re near the Boston area. A few of my classes the classes were using video from a school other than the Extension School, and in those cases, the classes were only available online for Extension students. When a physical class is held, it is video taped and within 4. Most classes use a slide show or PDF synchronized with the video. A few use other, more experimental, methods of synchronizing the visual aids with the lecture. There is usually a teaching fellow assigned to all the internet students to answer questions and hold sections that which are posted to the class website. The online master’s degree classroom experience at Harvard is far superior to what I’ve seen from other online degree programs. Aside from watching the video a day or two later than the physical class, distance students are treated pretty much like on- campus students. Testing is done through a proctor at a local college or university. The proctor receives the test by Fed. Ex and ships it back after you complete it. Quite a few classes avoid tests entirely and instead focused on projects, papers or very complex open book tests that don’t require a proctor. Residency Requirement. The apartment where we stayed during the 8 week summer semester. The ALM in IT master’s degree program has a one- semester residency requirement. Since the eight- week summer session counted toward this, we chose to spend a few months there during the summer. My wife and I rented a small, one- bedroom furnished apartment a few blocks from Harvard Square, and I took eight credit hours during those eight weeks. We were only a block or two from the Science Center where my classes were held and very near the subway in Harvard Square, so we didn’t need to use our car. It sat in a parking lot for most of the summer with the battery slowly draining from disuse. In retrospect, I would probably take fewer classes during the summer session and spend more time taking advantage of the museums and cultural events in the area. I was also working remotely, so my schedule was pretty full. Many of the master’s degrees from the Extension School have some classes that can be taken online. Most require at least two semesters residency. Some programs require that a certain number of hours be taken in person. The masters’ degrees in information technology (ALM in IT) and environmental management are the only two that appear to have the smallest residency requirement. Many of the classes offered by the Extension School do not have an online option, so beyond the residency requirement, some classes must be taken in person. Master’s Degree Courses. The ALM in IT program I chose concentrated in Software Engineering–basically a Master’s of Arts in IT focused on developing software. It consisted of 1. In addition to Harvard professors, the Extension School has lecturers teaching elective classes that come from local companies and even non- professors from Harvard. For example, one of the classes I took on XML was taught by the programmer responsible for all of the XML- driven websites and course catalogs for the Extension School. Having these two types of teachers proved very valuable. The Harvard professors were particularly good at teaching theoretical concepts and mathematics. The industry teachers were very good at teaching the classes that dealt with how to get things done in the real world. My program required that at least 8 classes (3. Harvard Instructors.” I believe most of the other programs have a similar requirement. The difficulty of the courses seemed to vary greatly, but this was probably a function of my previous experience more than anything else. Coming from a totally unrelated field, but with a lot of hands- on experience, meant that there were some gaps I had to fill in while taking classes that probably wouldn’t have been an issue for someone with an undergraduate computer science background. The Theory of Computation class was especially difficult for me. In fact, I took it twice. Halfway through it the first time, I was getting a B, but really struggling. I ended up dropping it. That summer, I took a course in discrete mathematics. It wasn’t required for the degree, but it filled in some of the background I needed to pass the Theory of Computation the next semester. I was impressed with how helpful the teaching fellow was during the the class that I found to be difficult. At the same time, I realized how difficult it is to take the classes online when you are struggling. There is something about sitting down in the room with someone that really benefits your comprehension. You simply don’t get trying to explain things back and forth over email. On the other hand, writing your questions on email can help you clarify your thoughts. Often, I found the answer to my problem simply by trying to formulate a written question. The Theory of Computation class was taught by Harry Lewis, who had taught the same class for years. He was teaching the class for the last time. The teaching fellows brought in some cake and refreshments on the last day. That’s another downside of not being on campus–no cake. Interesting side note: Dr. Lewis taught the same class to Bill Gates before he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. Online Master’s Degree Distance Education Experience. Taking classes by watching the lectures on your computer and communicating by email is hard. It is much easier to go to a physical class and sit with a bunch of your fellow students than participate in an online degree program. It is not something that everyone can do. It can be very frustrating and leave you feeling very isolated. Before making a huge commitment to try to earn a master’s. You have to make sure it works with your personality. It definitely isn’t for everyone.
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