hgseanon

@TabTurbo When you say HGSE classes are not as rigorous as those in other Harvard schools, how so? HGSE, by design, is a 1-year program and that makes it difficult for courses to cram in too much material and instead teach you how to apply material as a practitioner. While masters students obviously aren't getting their PhD, the short length of the program doesn't lend itself to course structures to go in-depth on material. In the courses I took, we ended up glancing through a bunch of topics, making it hard for professors to assign work that was rigorous. How do you feel about your career outlook comparing to what you were led to believe when enrolled? I'm probably not the best person to ask since I'm a part-time student. I've taken advantage of the ability to take courses at other schools and network there, so my opinion highly differs from other HGSE students. Apart from the handling of the pandemic-impacted class, how was your experience with the school leadership & management overall? Outright terrible. HGSE administration has been poor with communication the past year and hasn't shown signs of getting/doing better. They continue to disappoint me and fellow classmates with either lack of communication or terribly redundant communication, minimal community-building, etc. @futureproofAvoid, avoid, avoid the online program. I'm part of basically the beta-test of the online program and as you can probably tell, it's been a terrible experience. I didn't get access to all of the courses that HGSE offers to its regular, full-time program; in fact, Dean Long bragged about having an embarrassing 49% of courses available to us. I have no idea how much that might go up with the arrival of the online program, but can't imagine it being much higher as professors have complained about having to manage two different classes. I'm not sure about HBS cross-registration if you were in the online program, but you would have to be in the Boston area to do that since HBS is exclusively (or at least mostly) back to in-person. Also, I think you get a different degree with the online program. Overall, just like a consumer good, don't try the first iteration of something brand new. Let HGSE figure out how to make the online program good, and evaluate it as an option in a few years.

Hi everyone, I'm a current HGSE student here and want to push everyone to really think through how HGSE, or even a graduate degree, would fit into the rest of your career. I know you all are probably excited at the opportunity to come to a great university, but that doesn't imply that all of its schools are great as well. Why exactly do you all want to come to HGSE specifically? Why are you using some random US News ranking of Top Education Graduate Programs that arbitrarily ranks programs? What kind of research have you done in looking at programs? Do you know what courses you want to take? A masters in education is one year so you have one chance at taking the courses that align with your interests. For some of you, why are you only applying to HGSE? I can't help but think you're applying and want to enroll just for the brand and name recognition. If that's what you want, go ahead. But that's some damn expensive diploma. Sure, plenty of other programs are expensive, and I bet they're all overrated just like HGSE. Look at local or public universities; there are plenty of great options around the country like University of Michigan, Michigan State University, UC Berkeley, etc. Specifically regarding prospective applicants to the ed policy program, try looking at public policy schools at HKS, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, among others. These are all great public policy programs that have some relationship with education in the form of professors and their courses, research, or affiliated programs. HGSE's courses are not very rigorous and incredibly applied since the school is in the social sciences. I've cross registered at a few other Harvard schools and have found them a bit more rigorous than my HGSE courses. More importantly, I do want to share something that HGSE administration did to my part-time classmates who started last year. this article written by The Crimson sums up the situation pretty well. In short, HGSE decided to short change its own students and make us take courses online. So for this entire year, HGSE's own students can't take courses in-person at their own school, but a HBS student is free to register into a HGSE course. We're limited to just the courses that are done online, and that accounts for 49% of the course catalog (which Dean Long thought was something special to brag about). It's been completely inequitable, unfair, unjust, and frustrating. HGSE admin have been completely quiet about it, which seems like an admission of wrongdoing. We haven't really gotten any apology from Dean Long or acknowledgement of the inequity that it touts to resolve in its own mission statement. This ended up being a rant, but I hope everyone takes more time to thoughtfully think through what a Masters in Education is really going to do for you. If you want to be come a Policy Analyst or lead a new start-up, does a $50,000+ degree from HGSE really get you there any easier than the same degree from another institution? The masters program is a cash cow, just like 90% of masters programs, and HGSE will do whatever it takes to increase intake to make up for the loss from COVID. /endrant Feel free to DM me, but I honestly would rather keep dialogue and discussion here for everyone to read.