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<p>This mentality (it’s ok to misrepresent and to mislead as long as it is not technically a lie) is what led this country to problem it’s currently having.</p>
<p>Sure, but on the other hand, only a sucker tells the truth when nobody else does. When others puff their resume and you don’t, then they’ll be selected for the job over you. </p>
<p>Look, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the system. I wish it didn’t work this way. But as long as it does, you’d be a fool to stop when others won’t. The person who gets the job is not necessarily the most qualified, but rather the person who can convince the employer that he is the most qualified, which is not the same thing. Self-marketing and self-promotion, like it or not, have become integral to the hiring process.</p>
<p>There is a lot of discussion here about the ALB (which I think is a great program, by the way). I’m actually considering the ALM program with a concentration in history (or possibly the new international relations option). I already have a masters degree from a professional school, but would like to pursue a liberal arts education. I am a working adult and HES provides me with the opportunity to pursue my scholarly interest while not putting my career on hold, that’s what I find so compelling about the school and its programs. </p>
<p>Quite frankly, I could care less about what a bunch of 18-22 year olds think of me, but I am curious to know what the general perception of the ALM candidates is among masters degree seeking students from other colleges at the University. Is there any interaction between students from different colleges at the graduate level? If so, are ALM candidates viewed as peers or looked down upon? If anyone can provide any insight I would appreciate it.</p>
<p>^The grad schools other than the Faculty Of Arts And Sciences (FAS) are somewhat isolated from the College, and almost totally isolated from the Extension School, so I don’t know if they have an opinion at all. FAS itself has few masters degree programs, and mostly the PhDs interact with other PhD students and with College undergrads (as teaching assistants, lecturers, “resident tutors” who eat or live in the dormitories). A PhD student is most likely to encounter an HES student when working as a teaching assistant, an HES instructor, or as a classmate in a non-HES grad course taken for the ALM. </p>
<p>Students at the College (undergrad) can and sometimes do take courses at the law, business, education and medical schools, but there isn’t much enrollment in the other direction, because those are professional programs and people are busy. A lot of the students in the grad programs, because they did their bachelors’ degrees elsewhere (including outside the USA) don’t know much about the College or Harvard outside their program. They may not know that the extension school exists, or that it grants master’s degrees, or that an ALM is a degree from a continuing-education program. So whether other grad students consider you a “peer” is almost an irrelevant question; the HES could offer the world’s strongest coursework to the most selectively admitted students and it wouldn’t be on the radar for most of the Harvard grad students, under the current setup.</p>
<p>To stine and siserune to clarify:</p>
<p>The “very interesting” development in how the ALB should be represented on the CV is slightly incorrect. The website states in a response to a question on what the diploma looks like as a student being awarded a:</p>
<p>Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB) in Extension Studies from Harvard University</p>
<p>It states that it should be listed on your CV or resume as:</p>
<p>Bachelor of Liberal Arts, Harvard University Extension School
Concentration: Social Science (for example)
Field of Study: Government<br>
Citation: Legal Studies</p>
<p>Either way, it would not be appropriate to just say “Bachelor of Liberal Arts, Harvard University” on a resume or CV because that could be misleading. A person may as well put the extra two words in there anyway, even if it wasn’t required, in order to be clear. </p>
<p>Now, on an abbreviated bio, or in casual conversation, I think it would be not only accurate, but fair to say: “Yes, I have a bachelors from Harvard.” There is nothing wrong there. But then there would be a chance that more questions and conversation about the school would ensue, which at that point, I could say for instance: “Well, I completed a majority of my courses online when I was in the military with what is called the Extension School, an institution they have for working adults that is much more affordable then the traditional college. After X years, I fulfilled the bachelors degree requirements and received my diploma at the Harvard commencement in 20XX. So basically I got a top shelf education for a quarter of the price.”</p>
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<p>At the risk of beating a dead horse, may I ask, even if such verbiage was misleading, why would it matter? </p>
<p>Let’s be brutally honest - companies mislead people all the time. They mislead their employees, they mislead their business partners, and they mislead their customers. Advertising, for example, is basically skillful misrepresentation. As I stated above, McDonalds will try to sell you a burger by displaying it in a way to appear as tasty as possible, all the while hiding information about its calories. </p>
<p>If employers are perfectly allowed to market themselves to you, then I see no reason why job candidates can’t market themselves to companies. What’s fair is fair.</p>
<p>Justification for misleading text in the CV should not be derived from the given example of OTHERS being misleading (e.g. corporations etc). Making that argument is a logical fallacy (special pleading) in which an example is given in order to rationalize an uncorrelated point of argument, in this instance, omitting “Extension School” as being equal in merit and relevance to the argued point (companies do it, so why can’t I?).</p>
<p>Additionally, I think that the philosophical point here is that well educated people shouldn’t have to try to “trick”, “advertise” or allow the viewer of the CV to think that the degree was earned from Harvard College, which is what most people would think by default. By adding those two little words on a document FULL of words is not only appropriate, but honest. Honesty will always win out on deceit in this context. That said, this statement IN NO WAY makes an argument that earning an ALB is any less of a quality education then the AB. They are just different. Period. So just put it on there.</p>
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<p>I don’t even need the justification. I return back to my original statement: a resume/CV is a marketing document, nothing more. While you can’t outright lie in terms of claiming degrees and experiences that you don’t actually have, you are free to frame the degrees and experiences that you do have in any way that you wish in order to put yourself in the best possible light. </p>
<p>As a case in point, the WSJ recently ran the following article detailing how people are actually omitting impressive work experience and degrees on their resumes in order to not appear to be overqualified. Nor do I think there is anything wrong with doing so. That’s savvy and hard-nosed self-marketing and is therefore perfectly within bounds. </p>
<p>[The</a> New Rsum: Dumb and Dumber - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124328878436252195.html]The”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124328878436252195.html)</p>
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<p>False. This is business. Come on, let’s not be naive. Businesses mislead and withhold information all the time in order to succeed. That’s how business works. The act of hiring is a business partnership, nothing more, and should be treated as such. Business partners mislead each other all the time.</p>
<p>As a case in point, arguably the greatest business deal in the modern history was Microsoft’s deal with IBM to provide the DOS operating system for the PC. What IBM didn’t know - and what Microsoft would obviously never tell them - was that Microsoft’s OS offering wasn’t even their own, rather, it was simply a renamed and modified version of 86-DOS that Microsoft had licensed from Seattle Computer Products. If Microsoft had foolishly revealed that information, then IBM would have simply made a direct deal with SCP, which would mean that Microsoft would not today be the largest software company in the world and Bill Gates wouldn’t be a billionaire. But of course IBM didn’t know, and Microsoft led IBM to believe that MS-DOS was proprietary. </p>
<p>Again, that’s how business actually works. Don’t be a fool. Businesses will never be perfectly honest with you, so you are under no obligation to do the same. For example, I know one guy who took a job with a company under the belief that the job was safe, but what the company didn’t say is that the job for which he had been interviewing was in a division that had been been the subject of covert negotiations for several months for a sale to another company. That sale was indeed consummated, resulting in the elimination of thousands of jobs, including his own. That, after he had already uprooted his family and moved to a new city for his new job that quickly disappeared. But of course the company mentioned nary a word about those covert negotiations which, if he had known about them, would not have taken the job. </p>
<p>Again, that’s how business works. Information is a strategic asset. You don’t share information in a business negotiation if you don’t have to. Otherwise, you run the risk of having the counterparty use your information against you. Again, if the guy knew that the division might be sold, he probably wouldn’t have taken the job. But the company got what it wanted: the guy took the job, hence, providing the company with the viable option of not selling the division, and if it did anyway, resulting in thousands of layoffs, that wasn’t their problem. </p>
<p>So don’t be naive. I wished we lived in a world where people were rewarded for complete honesty. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world, and the realm of business, in particular, is one that does not reward complete honesty. You have to be savvy about the way that you present yourself to companies. There’s nothing at all wrong with hard-nosed self-marketing and framing.</p>
<p>Excuse me sakky, because I thought that this discussion would be one based on intellect and analysis of the debated points, but you think it appropriate to call me naive and a fool. </p>
<p>I will not reciprocate. In fact, I would say you certainly you have points, and I do think that you are correct in your assessment that a job application may be considered a business negotiation in itself, that knowledge is power, so on and so on. But my thinking is transcendental of this point. </p>
<p>Practically speaking, if the HR staff were to determine that I was presenting misleading information on my application, I may not get the job, or be fired after the job was awarded. But since we are now talking about business, I have found in my years running a business that the best practice for long term success and growth is not cut throat negotiation or “misleading and withholding information”, but fair minded business practices based on a foundation honesty. This keeps the clients coming back. Certainly your friend felt burned by the situation of moving his family to a new city only to get fired. This leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the former employee. Should these types of practices extend to the customer/client, I believe their eventual demise in one way or another to be inexorable. Of course there are reasonable exceptions. Perhaps omitting information that would make you seem more qualified and thus less likely to be hired is one instance. But in the wide view, the general philosophical distinction that I outlined above has served me well in business. I suppose this is my pragmatic nature. Or maybe I’m only a lucky naive fool.</p>
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<p>I said that your ideas were naive. Not that you were naive. Let’s be perfectly honest: employers are not your friends, and it is indeed naive to think otherwise. You do not owe them complete honest, just like they have no obligation to be and indeed are often times are not completely honest with you. To always provide complete information to a counterparty that is under no obligation to reciprocate is, unfortunately, naive. </p>
<p>The sad fact is, discrimination happens all the time, and information that you provide to employers can easily be used against you. For example, given that age discrimination is rife within the tech industry, many job candidates will deliberately dress in youthful and fashionable (but still business appropriate) clothes, dye their hair, and, for the women, undergo a full facial all in an effort to appear younger than they actually are. The fear is obvious: if the company actually knew how old they were, they might not hire them. Similarly, I know a woman whose first name is Christina who calls herself “Chris” on her resume, in an effort to avoid gender discrimination. Obviously the company will find out she’s a woman when they bring her in, but at least she’ll be in the interview room, so she still has a chance to impress them. If they knew she was a woman beforehand, she might not even get the interview, she fears. I read about an African-American guy whose first name strongly identifies him as African-American, and is the name that all of his friends use to address him, but identifies himself by his middle name - which is a far more neutral name - on his resume so that employers won’t immediately know that he’s African-American. </p>
<p>And of course there may be the most pervasive source of discrimination of all: hiring based on potential health insurance costs. One of my friends has children that suffer from various chronic conditions, but he of course will not utter a single word about it during any of his interviews for fear that employers won’t hire him so as to avoid potentially high health insurance claims. A recent news article listed 5 medical conditions that employers don’t want to see, some of which are detectable by an interviewer, such as obesity or smoker’s breath. The appropriate counterstrategy is to then wear a wardrobe that doesn’t make you look fat and don’t smoke right before the interview. </p>
<p>[The</a> 5 Medical Conditions That Employers Don?t Want to See in a Candidate :: Delaware Employment Law Blog](<a href=“http://www.delawareemploymentlawblog.com/2008/05/the_5_medical_conditions_that.html]The”>■■■■■■■■■■■■■)</p>
<p>[Newsmax.com</a> - Obesity Now Being Pushed As Civil Rights Issue](<a href=“http://www.newsmax.com/us/obesity/2009/04/27/208024.html]Newsmax.com”>http://www.newsmax.com/us/obesity/2009/04/27/208024.html)</p>
<p>[Weight</a> Discrimination: The Effects of Obesity on Employment - Hohonu](<a href=“Hohonu - A Journal of Academic Writing”>Hohonu - A Journal of Academic Writing)</p>
<p>But the point is, information is a strategic weapon, whether in a hiring context or any other business context. You never want to volunteer any information that would simply provide employers with reasons to reject you. Since an ALB degree from HES is in fact a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, I see no problem in listing it as such. Note, you’re not claiming to have an AB degree, nor are you claiming to have earned your degree at Harvard College. All you are saying is that you earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, which is perfectly within bounds for it’s not a lie and you are under no obligation to clarify the matter further. Just like “Chris” from the above discussion is under no obligation to clarify that she is a woman.</p>
<p>A lie by omission is still a lie.</p>
<p>And society’s foundation, in part, was established by lies to a certain extent. Only that the truth is never revealed until years later. The mask of deception can be your best ally or your worst enemy. Use it very carefully.</p>
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<p>The world of business is therefore built on a foundation of lies. What is modern-day marketing and advertising, if not just legalized lying (or at least legalized omissions of the truth)? Companies are essentially lying all the time, or at least concealing the whole truth, to convince you to buy their products. Like I said, McDonalds in its advertising wants to make its burgers and fries look as delicious as possible, while also trying to conceal how many calories they contain. That’s basically lying, or least, omitting the truth. </p>
<p>So I ask the question again: why are companies allowed to market their products in a manner that conceals certain facts, but job applicants are not allowed to do the same? Put another way, why aren’t you allowed to market yourself to a company in the same way that companies market themselves to you? What’s fair is fair.</p>
<p>I love Sakky’s constant rationalizations for his/her moral ambiguity.</p>
<p>personally, as a high school student, i took classes at harvard extension. obviously, i’m going to include it on my college apps, but i’m not going to lie about it. there is no way that harvard extension even compares to the real harvard education.</p>
<p>Did anyone remember to celebrate the fourth anniversary of this ancient thread? This is one of those arguments that can never end because neither side is wholly wrong in what it defends. An AB and an ALB are substantially the same academic degree, and graduate and professional schools everywhere on earth rightly recognize this. Only Harvard has tried to tamper with the actual name of the degree and it looks oddly insecure or meretricious for trying to do so. Yale, Columbia, Cambridge, etc show more confidence in their examinations; are they really so much better at this? Obviously, knowledge is the same both in the day and at night, or else it is not, in fact, knowledge. The examinations for the day and night courses are the same; an A is an A, a B is a B, etc. In general, lazy students get bad grades, both by day and by night, and diligent students get good grades, both by day and by night. Insofar as an AB student is better than an ALB student, this shows in grades and standardized tests; if it does not show up in those ways, then there is no real difference. Likewise, some ALB students are indeed as good or better than some AB students, as Harvard College instructors who teach both have said over and over again. There are, of course, students of both kinds who do not work out at Harvard. The AB is for “traditional” students who have been good students all their lives, and the ALB is for “nontraditional” students who have been all sorts of other things; one cannot say from evidence who has been or will be more fortunate in life. There is a more or less important difference in social experience between living in a House and not living in a House while attending any university. Just how important this pleasure is, however, depends on the individual. What grieves the occasional student in the College is the false belief that just being selected for this social difference is so important to his or her life’s prospects that sharing the same degree with someone who earned an ALB and yet has not been selected to sleep in one of Harvard’s Houses might cause him or her to miss out on something terribly important later in life. The usual nightmare is that, if the world learns that Harvard not only teaches the well-prepared and studious by day, but also the merely heroically motivated to learn, then the world will cease to adore the assemblage of scholars, libraries, scientists and laboratories that the university is, and then, in that case, the hard work of students in the College will only be honored for its intrinsic worth. Hmmmm… The dreadful truth is that, although either Harvard degree is marvelous to have, neither guarantees life success or happiness. George Vaillant’s fascinating longitudinal study of Harvard graduates shows that personal qualities that are never required for either an AB or an ALB matter far more. And that agrees with universal experience-- persons who attended obscure colleges can do well if they work hard on the right things, just as persons with either degree from Harvard can be deeply disappointed, if they turn out to be good students but bad, foolish, or unlucky human beings. “Enter to Grow in Wisdom” indeed! Quite apart from any degrees at all, I love Harvard as the community of scholars and scientists that would have changed my views on life even if they had not graded my exams and papers, and it is always a pity for me meet candidates for either degree who belittle this university and themselves by thinking of it as a “brand.” To students in the College-- there are more grave terrors ahead in life than ALBs in the job market. To students in Extension-- Harvard’s “brand” cannot make anyone something he or she was not before he or she came here, but there is knowledge and wisdom in this community that can save your life, if you have the courage to study and apply.</p>
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<p>Agreed. The bickering between the zealous College student and the insecure Extension Student has to stop. They just earned two DIFFERENT degrees from the SAME University.</p>
<p>Agreed. Unlike, Columbia GS and UPenn LPS, The Harvard Extension School allows a perspective student to register for classes before he applies to the ALB degree progam. This way, he could see if HES academic program is right for him.</p>
<p>This debate has lasted 2 1/2 years?? WOW!</p>
<p>I think the problem is that most modern day students (as evident by the 8 pages of posts on this one website) still see the purpose of college as just a way to get a better job…whether that means pumping up your resume, bragging about how you went to Harvard, etc…blame it on the pragmatism of American culture.</p>
<p>I go to HES, and I go to LEARN! I have a great job and already have a lot to brag about. That doesn’t mean that i think everyone should just audit every course…if you work hard you should get to reap the benefits of having the degree or certificate. I just wish more people went to school for the content rather than the paper.</p>
<p>Hi Josh,
You said it exactly: People should view HES as a place of learning rather than comparing it to Harvard College. I hope to take a few classes in the near future at HES. For the timebeing, cash is very tight. Therefore, I won’t be able to make the trip to Cambridge anytime soon. </p>
<p>The classes that HES has are more than enough to hold my interest. The focus on my mind is saving as much money as I possibly can. After that, I still need to take Calculus I and Calculus II for my quantitative requirements. Then, hopefully, that’s it.</p>