<p>True, but it seems people made a lot more of the absence of a week-long vacation in the fall. There was only one week of class after Thanksgiving,too.</p>
<p>Kids who work in summer in financial sector, âJ termâ is extremely important to gain additional experience. It may not be that much useful for kids who are not going to work on Wall Street as not much internship are available for J term for non financial sectors. Kids who try to obtain an additional skills through âJ termâ internships at Wall Street, it is best way to get exam before charismas break so they may focus to do additional internships in London/Hong Kong/NY for J term with reputed financial companies.</p>
<p>Students, who focus on the Wall Street, from Oxford/LSE/Cambridge/MIT have always taken advantage of the J term.</p>
<p>I donât think a curriculum ought to be fashioned for the benefit of a single group of students, or, for that matter, Wall Street. I never thought that Harvard students were at disadvantage before when applying to Wall Street jobs. I did hear that Commencement being in June put them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis students who could start work on June 1. But that is a separate issue from holding finals before Xmas.</p>
<p>I never claimed harvard student are at a disadvantage in getting summer internship, and I also never claimed that curriculum ought to be fashioned for the benefit of a single group of students.</p>
<p>Let me be clear, I just said that if you are a kid who is interested in getting additional internship with a famous wall street frims in J term, this exam before chritmasas break is better suited as one can go and work than the earlier way when exam occured after chrismas break as kids still have to worry about studying for the exam.</p>
<p>Marite is absolutely right, and collegeinusa, you need to get a grip dude and calm down. </p>
<p>Spending J-term in the financial sector means absolutely nothing in terms of eventually securing a job in that sector by a Harvard student. Perhaps it may be helpful for some of the more business oriented schoolsâ students; but that is far from certain as well.</p>
<p>Please do not say things about which you have no real knowledge, presenting those things as if they were fact (and of all places in this forum.) Your hyperventilating speculation about what is important to students interested in the financial sector is symptomatic of the kind of personality that is not only undesirable to say I-bankers, but to just about any other employer as well. </p>
<p>As so many parents on this thread have taken great pains to point out, Harvard has been, for a very long time, all about getting an outstanding liberal arts education (despite the pre-professionalism orientation of some of its students), and it is those skills acquired in the process that make its students so desirable from an employers point of view. </p>
<p>HarvardÂs movement from its previous term structure to the new one will have little impact (positive or negative) on the desirability of its students (versus other schools) to organizations in any sector of the economy.</p>
<p>ws59 : </p>
<p>I have nothing to say more than this kid came from poor background and attended LSE on money from George Soros. (this is good for any Harvard kid on financial aid and without any connections who wants to follow in this kid path)- Meet Jan Sramek, the 22-Year-Old Goldman Sachs Trader in Charge of Millions. I am calm as I admire the work ethics of these kids. I only know these kids (who may be or may not be on full financial aid) and through their hard work and progress their success even they have many obstacles in place of them. I know about them through artilces in newspaper only. </p>
<p>This week, he was named in the Financial News list of 100 Rising Stars, a kind of 40-under-40 list for the continental financier set. Heâs the youngest-ever person to make the the list (and thatâs counting his nomination last year, when he was still at the London School of Economics), and his r</p>
<p>Does any parent know if a person who got admission to HBS 2+2 programs defer their admission by one year as opportunities in the wall street are pretty interesting and exciting. Thanks</p>
<p>Oh my goodness! My son LOVES the new schedule. And so do we! But he is a procrastinator who likes to work in explosive bursts rather than calmly get started on finals over the course of winter break and spread the work out. Nope. Not my boy at all. There are a lot of different work styles, I guess.</p>
<p>"Meet Jan Sramek, the 22-Year-Old Goldman Sachs Trader in Charge of Millions. I am calm as I admire the work ethics of these kids. "</p>
<p>Hopefully this will not be his long term career.</p>
<p>Sorry to change topics. Does anyone know the exact date and time upperclass students can move back into their houses after winter break? Is it Jan.22 or 23? Iâve searched both the academic calendars, and her House website to no avail. Thanks.</p>
<p>fauve:</p>
<p>It looks like your answer is January 22 according to the the following schedule:</p>
<p>Key Dates:
12/22/09 - Student winter recess begins at 5 p.m. (3 p.m. for freshmen)
12/24/09 - Employee Winter Recess break begins at 12 noon (1/2 day) 1/3/10 - Pre-approved students
return to campus after 9 a.m.
1/4/10 - Employees resume regular work schedule
1/22/10 - Undergraduate Houses and Dorms open for spring semester occupancy
1/25/10 - Spring classes begin</p>
<p>from:<a href=âhttp://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/Winter_Recess_and_Winter_Break_Announcement.pdf[/url]â>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/Winter_Recess_and_Winter_Break_Announcement.pdf</a>
scroll down to the bottom of the first page.</p>
<p>Thanks so much ws59! A treasure trove of details, unpublished at the house newsletter or parents site.</p>
<p>Ooops, I reported inaccurate information. Seems my daughter likes the old schedule better. She said that this schedule condenses too many tests into too short of a time.</p>
<p>Houses reopen on the 22nd to those who do not have J-Term Housing.</p>
<p>I think my sonâs reaction is similar to twinmomâs D. Except that in addition to more tests closer together it seemed like he had a major paper due almost every day after Thanksgiving (he spent most of Thanksgiving working on three papers due the next week). The semester has been compressed by three weeks from January last year and the beginning of the semester was only about a week earlier. I suspect that this will work itself out over the next year or so as professors get more used to the shorten time and space their tests and papers out a little bit.</p>
<p>Son 2 was complaining about the compressed 1-week reading period, shorter exam period, not enough time to write papers and prepare etc. So Son 1 told him that at Columbia reading period is 2 days, and just 1 week for finals- they have 4 (!) final slots per day vs Harvardâs 2 though if you have 4 on a day you can get one moved. Son 2âs response is that some faculty havenât yet adjusted the workload to the new schedule, weâll see how this evolves.</p>
<p>Sounds like Harvard is tougher than Columbia? Perish the thought. I was under the impression that Harvard students were supposed to be EC-obsessed academic slackers. :)</p>
<p>Well . . . As the Parent Thread approaches its 2,000th post in over a year and a half, let me first of all, wish all of you a very happy holiday season. Itâs been so helpful and so enjoyable to share our kidsâ journeys with one another, that I wondered if any of the other Ivies had parentsâ threads. I did searches and it appears that only the Harvard and Yale boards have ever done this; the Yale Parent Thread died a year ago with just a little over 100 posts. They currently have an advice thread for parents of freshmen that gets perhaps a half dozen posts a month. So now I wonder why this thread works so well for the Harvard parents and why it isnât a mainstay of other campus fora? Are we just inherently chatty and convivial folk or is there something endemic to Harvard that is well-served by a parent thread?</p>
<p>I donât think this new schedule has been that great for my kid. She is staying on campus in January. She was going to be paid to work at Boston Childrenâs Hospital but apparently they are short on funds, so she is looking for work for the month of January. She needs to save up some serious money since she is going to med school next year.</p>
<p>I suspect, as others said, the schedule will iron itself out over time. Those students that never knew anything else will be happy that they donât have exams over the winter break. I know that my daughter will have more time to visit with friends and family without exams and papers (whoâs counting the thesis?) hanging over her head during this break. </p>
<p>I am having trouble believing that her four years at Harvard are coming to an end. Then again, it is nice to think about the end of the tuition bills!</p>
<p>GADad, I agree. This is a great thread, and I suspect it will go on indefinitely. Kudos to Guitars for beginning it.</p>