Fake Harvard?

There are levels of rigor. I recommend you take some time off and take a daytime class at Penn State, then take the exact same class online. I think you'll find that there's a difference if you take a course that's less liberal arts and more STEM oriented.

That's not to say your classes aren't rigorous. They're just not turned up to 11.

Unfortunately no, my information is based on familial bias as I've got people on both sides of the family that have gone to both HC and Penn State ground. Wish I had something statistically definitive but if that were easily available then this forum would lose half of the topics of conversation

They expand as needs present themselves. Give them some time. Honestly I'm surprised they don't.

 

I would argue that in fact, PSU does not allow their distance courses (at least at the graduate level) to be any easier than their B&M counterparts. My courses were very intense and my personal advice to anyone considering them would be to not take any more than two courses at a time, especially if you work full time. I truly believe that PSU designs their courses so that there can't ever be discussions like the one we're having, and as such they are designed to meet University Park's rigor. I cannot speak for undergrad at world campus, nor can I speak for any of the other satellite PSU campuses. I'm being very specific about graduate courses.

No doubt, which is why I offer my personal experience with PSU. While I view U.S. News and World with skepticism, I also think they are not that far off with some of their rankings. I'd like to see an actual non-biased report on all of these schools. It would make for an interesting read.

I'm already addicted to school, so I can only imagine if they offered other courses that I'm interested in. Harvard (main campus) already has a great public health school, so I'm not sure why HES hasn't already begun offering at least grad certs. You're right, they will expand just like many other schools. Can't wait!

 

It's not environmental health or OS, but the Sustainability Certificate has features in the same neighborhood. Sustainability Certificate | Sustainability Training Environmental Economics, Environmental Toxicology and Risk Management, Corporate Sustainability, Intro to Sustainable Development. One could make the case for their applicability to your profession. In fact the sustainability angle complements your Penn State MPS quite nicely IMO.

Expensive Cert though...and they will not allow you to apply those credits to a Masters.

 

Trust me, I've looked at that exact cert several times. If it included more of an occupational health/hygiene track, I would have been all over it. At $1,950 for graduate-credit courses, I really don't think it's that unreasonable. The other program I'm considering from Alabama is a little over $900 per grad course. In comparison to Johns Hopkins, Harvard actually comes out around $6,500 cheaper. For the Harvard name, it's really not bad at all. :wink1:

 

I read it too, it's old though,and I thought his was in management (no thesis). If you want to search the archives back to when I did my first HES class, 09 I think, I might have linked to it but it's a long shot. Might be faster to google.


P.S. we need a "pissing contest" emoticon

(edit sorry I forgot to quote- this was far Rebel)

 

I'm not in a pissing contest, I just believe that PSU doesn't allow any of their grad courses to be easier simply because it's the world campus. I would also love to enroll in HES courses if they had a cert I was interested in. Now you've made me angry. :lmao:

Hulk Smash!



EDIT: Haha! I've never used the pic function before. Awesome.

 

@soupbone -

Have you actually taken a true Penn State ground course? Trusting the school to state that the same rigor exists isn't really appropriate to the discussion. They're going to say that to prevent people from forming bias.

Now this being said, I won't take away from your "don't take more than two classes at once" statement. I had the same mentality coming out of the UMass part time MBA program at Amherst.. but I'll tell you straight up that the two classes I took ass in chair in that program were 100 times worse than the online courses per comparison of the syllabi.

So I'd keep in mind that for most schools, the "rigor" is relative to the constituency.

Less a "you're not right" and more a "check your reality" statement.

 

That's awesome, you're bringing back my childhood. You know it's the 70's when The Hulk looks more real than the bear he's chucking.

 

Ok- the ACTUAL test is to simply find out if one program accepts credit from the other. If yes, then it's the same. If no, well, then it's not.

 

Well what about the student that makes his/her way through school choosing classes from Rate My Professor and deliberately skips every difficult class possible yet graduates from Penn State. They sat in the seat but missed a lot of the classes others had to take in order to graduate. Same for the guy that went to Florida, but never shares that he majored in PE....silly argumets, but then I didn't post a pic of Lou Ferigno thowing a giant teddy bear.

 

I believe we've all come to an impasse. There really isn't a way to prove what either of us are saying, however, I am relaying first hand information that my courses were very difficult. I can only remember one course that I thought was easy, and it was an elective. I've also spent enough time in B&M classes to say that they aren't any harder than any distance course I've ever enrolled in. My world campus course did not suffer from grade inflation either. I could see the class average in each course (it was a function you could run), and I can guarantee that not everyone was passing. Again, I understand that this still doesn't end the argument, but if my courses were that hard, the B&M PSU courses must be near impossible to pass (insert HES/Harvard in the same line).

This course would fit what I'm looking for. I wish Harvard would take this course and build on it ti create a full OSH cert: ENVR E-159 Environmental Toxicology and Risk Management (online)

Sustainability Certificate | Sustainability Training

 

With the caveat of the student having some combination of part-time bandwidth, less than wonderful study skills, or lack of contact with the teaching body.. yes.

Classes are scaled to the norm, and the norm for a full-time dorm-living student at a top-tier school is significantly different than someone learning at a distance while working full-time.

Without knowing your work/home situation, I'd hazard a guess that your classes would be a walk in the park if you were able to spend a true 20 hours to 40 hours a week on them and still get a good night's sleep.

 

Full time work 40-50 hours a week, 4-5 hours a night on PSU papers, around 10-15 hours per weekend (sometimes less), essentially no life for the time of the program. Wash, rinse, and repeat each week. I did have the occassional holiday, birthday, wedding, etc. that I attended, but for the most part I was a very dedicated student. As an adult learner that pays my own way, it's all or nothing for me. I never put forth half efforts, especially with school. I don't doubt that you could put forth the minimum and pass a course, but looking at the class average, those people were getting C's and D's. That's why I'm arguin my side. I could actually see how the rest of the class was doing. In my TESC courses, you would be correct on being scaled down, but even then, I put forth the same effort because I was intent on learning. I appreciate this discussion even though we've strayed off course a bit.


P.S. Forgot to add, the reason I put so much time in also had to do with completing the three year program in two years. I wanted to be done, so I also went straight through with only Christmas being part of my breaks. I attended Spring, Summer, and Fall courses throughout the program. :smashfreakB:

 

ITJD,

Actually it would help if you could provide some quantitative support for your assertions regarding the relative rigor of a PSU WC class versus a resident class. It seems you are making the assumption that just because it is online it not as difficult (i.e., as good) as a class for resident students. Do you have personal experience with PSU or maybe this was your experience at UMass (were you resident at UMass)?

The reason I ask is because I am finishing a program similar to Soupbone's at PSU. Mine is an IT focused program and my experience was that most of my classes are provably equal in rigor to the University Park courses; in fact they were the same courses. There were usually live classes with resident students attending, all assignments were the same, we partnered with resident students, the only difference was that we were watching the class over the Internet. Also there were some courses that did not include live lectures, but still resident students received the same class delivery as distance students.

I am not saying that PSU or the WC programs are the most rigorous that you could find - but I don't think you can show convincing evidence that the online courses are designed with lower objectives or levels of difficulty in mind at this particular university. As to whether it compares to HES, I don't have any experiences to offer.

Thanks

 

I believe it was this blog:

Harvard Extended

Can't remember if this is the exact one or not, but this one has a lot of great information about the program either way!

 

I have seen that one before...thanks for the link!

 

Hello fellow PSUer. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong ITJD, that what he's saying is that courses usually scale to fit their need. In other words, because distance learning caters to those looking for convenience (i.e. adult learners with full time jobs), the courses are scaled back some so that people don't fail out by too intense of a course load. However, like I've stated a few times, that may very well be the case in other schools, but PSU apparently is bucking the trend (and I'm glad they do). My TESC courses were scaled down, so I know exactly what he means, but like I said all but one of my courses (with PSU) were very difficult. Of course I understand that my own personal experience is anecdotal, but that's all I have at this point.

 

@soupbone -

1. You're right.
2. I can't speak directly to PSU so you're both more experienced than I in that case.

However, I've directly taken or reviewed courses at Harvard, Stanford, MIT and UMass. I've seen cases where schools have done the exact coursework at distance and local (Stanford and MIT) and done courses in a tiered fashion for distance (Harvard and UMass) and I'll state that if you didn't see a 70% drop rate in your courses at PSU - there's a very good chance that PSU either isn't as rigorous as some schools or has found some sort of happy medium.

 

Thanks for that added info, but I am a little confused. I am not familiar with the concept of "reviewing" courses. I assume you are an educational consultant of some sort, hired to evaluate the rigor or effectiveness of types of course delivery? If I am correct, that must be a fascinating job. Or, were you an enrolled student at all those schools?

Regarding the drop ( or do you mean drop out ) rate of 70%, is that data generally available, or only available to acedemic "industry" insiders? It seems extremely high in either case to me, regardless of the school, unless the admission policies are somehow short-circuited. If you have a link to official drop ( or drop out) rates it would something worth sharing; I can't see the connection to program quality without context.

Thanks again for the info!