Mid life crises has me asking this question: 1. Which would hold more weight...a Phd from NCU or an Undergrad BA in Business from Harvard Extension School? I am guessing that if I am in the job market as an entry-level to junior management I would be better off with the Hah Vaaad Degree. If I want to ever be a director of a Government Agency the PhD would serve more utility. What yall think?
The only undergrad Bachelor's degree available from Harvard Extension is the A.L.B. (Bachelor of Liberal Arts), and I don't believe that Business is one of the available concentrations.
But the question is an interesting one. A friend of mine took a B.Chem.E. from a state school and a law degree from the University of Utah, becoming a patent lawyer in the process and making (I guess) oodles of money. She then went to HBS and got her M.B.A. I asked her about the value of that degree being from Harvard; she said that she remained an "outsider" even among her classmates because she wasn't "one of them". She hadn't gone to their prep schools or gotten a Yale B.A. So the contacts weren't really all that helpful. This was strictly anecdotal, of course, but it made me wonder.
Well, lets say its the Harvard ALB...NOsborne makes an interesting point. Maybe its the contact points of the undergrad Harvard Degree sometimes more than the prestige that holds more weight.
Assuming things haven't changed substantially since I went through the program, there are no concentrations. Now there are certain requirements (a foreign language requirement, etc.) there is considerable flexibility in the degree requirments, perhaps even a bit more than many other Bachelors degree programs. This, I believe, is because it is a Bachelor of Liberal Arts program. They expect people to take lots of different stuff. Now I don't know how many business courses they actually offer. Maybe you could take a whole bunch and when people look at your transcrpts they will see you've got a solid business education. The diploma, however, does not list a concentration, even if you take 90% of your courses in one subject area like I did (Psychology). To answer the original question, I'd do the PhD program. Jack
It appears that there is now an "Area of Concentration". http://www.extension.harvard.edu/2004-05/libarts/undergrad/reqs/albdegree.jsp
So is the Harvard Extension ALB diploma the same that is issued for an ALB from the Arts & Sciences Faculty?
I believe that the only undergraduate degree offered by Harvard College is the A.B. (Bachelor of Arts). The A.L.B. is unique to the Extension School, and IMO, intentionally so. My sister-in-law is a Harvard College grad, and she told me that the Harvard College diplomas are in Latin, while the Extension diplomas are in English.
You know, I'm 98% certain that the Harvard Extension diplomas are in Latin; in fact, I believe in the Q & A area of the Extension School website they hilight this fact ostensibly for the purpose of assuring students that no casual observer will be able to make out "extension" in Latin, they'll just notice the "Harvardus"--or whatever it is--and be wowed by that. Those Extension School courses are the same, for the most part, as the courses taught at Harvard College, often by the same profs, there's just less selection and they're one whale of a lot cheaper. Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, NYU and Columbia also offer extension school or adult ed courses Summers or evenings, and supposedly the degrees are a little more straightforward to obtain than the Harvard Extension degrees, not so many nitpicky requirements.
I believe that Jack Tracey has stated that his Extension diploma is in English. Knowing Hah-vuhd, they're not going to let the hoi-polloi of the Extension School be too closely associated with the "real" Harvard grads.
So, the extension school is evening study for local residents and distance learning with recidencies for all others correct?
Harvard Extension offers many resident classes in the evening in Cambridge, and does have some DL courses. However, it's not possible to earn a degree without some residency at this time.
The individual college is listed on all the diplomas at Harvard, so having Extension on the diploma is no different than having Harvard College listed.
Somehow I find this difficult to accept. I would have started Liberty University a couple of years earlier but, at the time, it was called Liberty University School of LifeLone Learning(LUSLLL) and I just could not see myself looking at a diploma that had such a name on it. When they dropped that silly LUSLLL and simply gave everyone a Liberty University diploma (no distinction) I enrolled and, according to some resources, so did a lot of other people. I bet if Harvard gave a diploma that looked just like all the others the numbers would go up --- what do you think?
All other considerations being equal I would give more weight to the PhD if hiring for a job in the aerospace industry.