<p>Happy New Year to Everyone! </p>
<p>Just wondering how your sons and daughters are spending J term? I, for one, am loving having my freshman home, especially with a complete break from studies.</p>
<p>Weâre enjoying our time with our son so much! I agree that my son is so much more relaxed than last year with finals after break. </p>
<p>Happy new year!</p>
<p>My daughter has to work to pay for medical school next year. Sheâs doing some kind of data entry job at Harvard and some work for a Tufts professor.</p>
<p>My son is working a brief intense internship and seems to be enjoying the change of pace from academics.</p>
<p>My daughter had been working at Bostonâs Childrenâs Hospital. She had planned on doing this during January but their funding has been cut back and she was not going to be paid.</p>
<p>^ Son is not getting paid. That seems to be pretty common these days.</p>
<p>DD is enjoying time at home. She is sleeping quite a bit - going to sleep late and waking up late! </p>
<p>Does anyone know when grades for last semester are officially posted?</p>
<p>^ My understanding is that grades are supposed to be posted by 10 days after the final exam. Strangely LS1a continues to not be up. Expos, Math 1a and SLS20 have all been received. Grades can be seen on their my.harvard account. She signs in, goes to âcampus resourcesâ and then âonline student recordâ. A PDF of her record will then upload to your computer.</p>
<p>^ That is what she told me - some grades are up and others are not. I was wondering if there was a deadline for all of them to be in.</p>
<p>^ the last of my daughterâs grades came up over night last night. I donât know if that is an indication that pretty much all grades should be up</p>
<p>Do your kids buy/order their textbooks before the start of the semester? Are syllabuses available on-line somewhere to figure out what books are required for certain classes?</p>
<p>We were just discussing this at our house. We plan to look at textbooks.com for pricing and also will look into renting books. Does anyone here know of a good site for textbook rental?</p>
<ol>
<li> Is it typical after the exams for Harvard professors to write private emails congratulating the student for being among the top 2-3% grade earners? </li>
<li> Is it routine that the professors invite student to come to office and discuss studentâs career plan and interest?</li>
<li> Is it a good sign to get this attention from few key professors?<br></li>
</ol>
<p>The professors are among the biggest heavyweight in Harvard University as their name appears several times on this board counted as elite among Harvard professors. I am keeping my fingers crossed.</p>
<p>englishhelpneede, did you receive an e-mail from your prof or are you wondering if this is what happens at Harvard?</p>
<p>Hi englishhelpneede, this really comes down to individual professors. Iâm not aware of it being a general trend and this was especially not the case in my concentration department. From my experience, students usually have to make an initiative to get to know professors, especially those in larger classes. In smaller departmental seminars, itâs actually quite easy to get the attention of a professor. How approachable a âheavyweightâ professor dependsâŠwellâŠlargely on the professor. Some are rather egotistical and some are extremely friendly. Itâs like that anywhere else.</p>
<p>Guitars :</p>
<p>I did not personally receive email, as I am not a student at Harvard. Pardon me for the confusion if I came across in my posting that way. I am the local USA guardian of my nephew who attends Harvard University. His parents live outside of USA. My nephew who attends Harvard did receive these two emails from the two bigwig professors.</p>
<p>WindCloudUltra:</p>
<p>The student has maintained decent GPA by marinating almost all highest grade in the classes. The student is taking some very large classes and some very small classes and with four to five classes per semester, workload is quite insane. There were never private emails until last year, so this year the two emails were quite pleasing but at the same time perplexing too. We were just wondering that probably a Harvard professor routinely does start the initiation with students or it is something serious in nature. I did not find the information so asked on the parent thread. Silly me if I bothered any one. I thought that it is a routine matter that professors take keen interest in students. </p>
<p>The following question that the student is deliberating is driving him insane. Is it wise to discuss career goals with the professors when the student is not looking to pursue a career in academic field? Will it is detrimental to inform the professor about career outlook different from academia. On occasion different professor have told the kid that they are pleased with the work they have seen performed by the student. However, there was never an email before. The student does not want to rock the boat and is wondering to see the professor, as he is more focused life outside of awards and academia and more geared towards starting an entrepreneur endeavor. I was just looking for some inputs from wise people over here.</p>
<p>It is absolutely fine for students to discuss their career plans with profs. After all, the profs will eventually have to write recommendation letters and most students do not end up in academia, including those who are academic stars.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>Is it considered not good to ask TFs for recommendations? It seems as if my son has become closest to several TFs and that they are most familiar with his work.</p>
<p>I would think its not a great idea to ask TFâs for recommendations. Of course it depends on what the recommendations are for.</p>
<p>sewhappy: Itâs fine. A lot of employers and grad programs know and understand that some students are in large classes where most of the interaction is with TFs rather than professors, especially if youâre in a large concentration like econ or gov. With that said, if your kid has taken some small seminars and really know professors really well, those letters of course look more impressive, esp for grad programs. (i.e. a professor went to grad school with the head of a department of the grad programming youâre applying to) </p>
<p>But thereâs nothing inherently wrong with a TF rec letter.</p>