Degrees of Separation

Twenty-year-old Linda Vaghar sometimes forgets she isn’t forty. Anyone who saw her last Wednesday around the time of evening rush hour never would have known it though. There she was, sitting in front of Au Bu Pain like many other college girls—flanked by three of her girlfriends, catching up on midweek gossip with pauses for the occasional giggle or sip of Diet Coke. The way she focused her round, dark eyes on the girls as they spoke might have made it seem like their individual woes about frigid Harvard boys were the only things running through her mind. But as she sat back for a moment and talked about her schedule, it became obvious that there is a lot more to her life than Seventeen-style crushes and diet tricks.

“My days are insane,” she said, taking another sip from her white paper cup. She pouted a little, and then sighed. “Today I’m just really tired.” Vaghar then told her friends how she had to get up at 7:30 a.m. just to get to work by 9 a.m. She worked a full day, scooting out of the office right at 5 p.m., so she could land a spot on the 5:05 p.m. train to Harvard Square. She got there just in time to take a little ABP break before heading to her two evening classes that would keep her cooped up in Sever Hall until 9:30 p.m. She then planned to pencil in a quick ice-cream break with “her Ollie”—her boyfriend—before heading home, where she would do homework and read until 3 a.m. And then the whole cycle would start over again.

“It can be really hard sometimes,” said Vaghar as she glanced around the table at her brunette girlfriends. “But I’ve resolved myself that this is my life. And even though I have a really full plate, this works for me, and it makes me stronger.”

For the nearly 1000 college-aged students currently cycling through the Harvard Extension School in pursuit of their undergraduate degrees, day to day life can sometimes be a test of strength. As Mark S. Ouchida, the Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Degree Program in Extension points out, the Extension School, founded in 1909 for the evening enrichment of working adults, today serves as “an excellent alternative for students who don’t have the luxury of not having to work.” For students like Vaghar, who put themselves through school, all the working leaves them in an interesting position—in a sort if limbo between the fast-paced adult working world and the loafing life of a college student. However, at a school where many traditional college students remain oblivious to those who come to their campus at night, limbo is a way of life.

“At first, you’re always trying to figure out where you fit in in the larger scheme of things, you almost feel like you are playing a lot of roles” Vaghar said. “It’s hard, and it takes time to find a niche at this place, but if you work hard at it, Harvard begins to feel like a home.”

Extension School Students as Harvard Students:

At Les Zygomates, a chichi wine bar near South Station, Audrey M. Huff, a fourth year extension school student, placed her glass of red wine on the steel bar and began to talk about the gap that separates extension school undergraduates from the Harvard college community.

“It’s hard to say sometimes why the distinction is even there,” she said, brushing a strand of long, brown hair behind her ear. “A lot of extension school students participate in the same activities as the college students and even take essentially the same classes. They have friends at the college. You begin to ask yourself where the distinction lies. Is it in the application to college? We can’t deny it’s there, but the more time you spend at the extension school, it just becomes harder and harder to define.”

A look at Huff’s career at Harvard shows how well many of the extension school students are able to integrate into the larger Harvard academic community. Like many extension school students, Huff can say she really knows Harvard professors—and knows them well. Currently, bona fide Harvard professors teach 70 percent of the extension school’s 560 course offerings, exposing the program’s 14,000 students to much of the same material that they teach to college students by day. However, many of the extension school students assert that they see a side of professors that only comes out by the moonlight.

“It is really amazing to see how the professors operate in the evening,” Huff said, turning in her tall, leather bar chair. “Many of them are much more accessible and open in the evenings because they have a sense that they are teaching classes geared toward their own colleagues since so many of the extension school students are working professionals themselves. They have a laid back attitude that a lot of students just don’t get to see in the more formal atmosphere of the day school. We really have the best of all worlds in the evenings. It can be unbelievable sometimes.”

Last Monday evening, Sven Beckert, an Associate Professor of History at the college, began the first class he was teaching at the extension school with an undeniably casual air. He stood in front of a very crowded Sever classroom and scanned his 7:30 p.m. class with a faint smile, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his dark blue oxford shirt was slightly unbuttoned at the bottom, revealing just a sliver of his white undershirt.

“I see that capitalism is keeping people up late these days,” he said as a segue into his first lecture for the class “History of American Capitalism” (by day, History 1651). He paused and took a sip from a Poland Spring bottle before continuing. “This is really tremendous. I can’t tell you all how wonderful it will be to teach this class to people who actually work, and probably understand capitalism quite a bit already.”

Getting to know Harvard professors in such a friendly atmosphere is only the beginning for some extension school students. Ouchida points out that students in the degree program are encouraged to take their academic experience one step further by taking part in the school’s Reading and Research Program, which helps extension school students find research positions with professors at Harvard or other universities in the Boston area.

“This program is really so much what you make it,” said Ouchida, who received his master’s degree through the extension school. “It is such a wonderful opportunity for these students to take classes at Harvard, but making those additional connections is just a further perk for determined students in the evening program.”

Huff is one such determined student whose work at the extension school has opened up a wealth of new academic doors. As a student with a GPA above a 3.0, Huff qualifies for special student status at the college—an attribute that allows her to take four classes per year during the day for the regular per-class Harvard tuition. But Huff has found that the day classes can be a tough experience, not because of the workload, but because of the difference in attitude that infiltrates Harvard during the daytime hours.

“I’ve definitely met some really condescending people at the day school,” Huff said. She paused to thank the bartender, another extension school student, for a cheese plate. “But I know that if I work hard and speak up, I’ll only be able to prove myself. It’s so strange, because when you take classes at night, you really see the difference when you go to day classes where the competition is so rampant. These college kids play mind games with each other in section and all really know how to talk, and that can be really intimidating.”

But for some students at the extension school, overcoming intimidation is paramount to their ultimate goal. According to Ouchida, the extension school administration is currently working hard to try to create more of a community among their students with the creation of a panoply of extension school extracurriculars as well as a quarterly newsletter for those in the undergraduate degree program, the UN-Letter. However, Huff pointed out that many extension school students she knows would probably rather integrate into the already existing Harvard community than form an entirely new one.

“A lot of students really want to be a part of things, and some have even come into the program looking for a more traditional college experience, and wanting to join the Harvard activities is definitely a manifestation of that,” Huff said.

With the extension school’s handbook encouraging their students to submit work to The Advocate and investigate Phillips Brooks House volunteer opportunities, such a desire doesn’t seem impossible. Many extension school students are more present on campus than students at the college realize. At the Fly Club’s recent Calypso party, for example, Emma C. Samelson-Jones ’02 voiced her happiness when she entered the club’s backyard and realized one of her favorite friends at the extension school was playing the drums with the live salsa band commissioned for the event. And Shelby J. Braxton-Brooks ’03 can tell you that at least one extension school student appeared at the common casting audition for her hip main stage dance production, Against the Grain.

For students like Vaghar, who calls herself a “very, very social person, someone who can walk into a room of strangers and come out with at least one new best friend,” breaking into the Harvard community was not so much of a challenge. (Note: she also made an appearance at the Fly party with her boyfriend, Oliver J. Bell ’03, who is also a Crimson editor.) After having to leave Manhattanville College in New York after just one year because of family illness, Vaghar has used her experience at Harvard to make new friends and continue work for some of her favorite causes. As an active member of the Harvard College Democrats, Vaghar was able to make friends with many students her own age—a fact that she says made a world of difference for her overall happiness.

“After a year at the extension school, I can say that I am legitimately smiling,” Vaghar said, glancing at her watch to see if she needed to scoot to class. “Now, I truly know who my friends are at this place. I’ve met so many wonderful people at this school and that helped this place start to feel more like my own—like a place that I wouldn’t want to transfer from.”

However, for students like D’Lynne Plummer, the bartender at Les Zygomates and an aspiring television writer, the idea of joining Harvard extracurriculars borders on offensive.

“I’m at the extension school for the enrichment,” Plummer said as she retrieved a wine bottle for a table of girls in the corner of the restaurant. “I’ve met many wonderful professors and learned a ton, but I don’t expect much more. I don’t want to leech on the Harvard community. The kids at the college—they are paying for the connections, the perks, the activities. I pay $450 a class—I mean, what do I want?

However, perhaps more interesting than the questions extension school students ask themselves are the answers they constantly have to give to others. Vaghar said that being an extension school student requires strength when she faces traditional Harvard College students who don’t understand why people would be interested in alternative degree programs.

“You have to be really comfortable in your own skin to be an extension school student,” Vaghar said. “People are constantly questioning why you would do this. Kids here don’t know much about it. It even took my boyfriend a month to understand what I was doing. You get to this point though where you just accept it, and say to people simply, ‘I do this because it works for me.’”

However, both Huff and Vaghar admit that sometimes when they are in a rush or don’t want to fully explain their life stories to strangers, they tell people simply that they are “off campus.” But Huff stresses that this isn’t something that many extension students make a regular habit.

“Explaining the situation can be really tedious, but you want to give people a clear picture usually because you are so proud of yourself,” Huff said. “Afterall, this isn’t your average continuing ed program. I’ve done a lot of wonderful things at Harvard and I want people to understand that.”

Students and the Larger World:

On the fifth page of the Extension school’s award winning “Success and Survival Handbook,” students are shown a sample resume that demonstrates how to represent their extension school degree to potential employers:

Education:

Harvard University

ALB in Extension Studies

(Or AA in Extension Studies)

Field of Study: Psychology

The book then states clearly, “Any confusion that you may cause, even unintentionally surrounding your degree earned could lead to serious consequences.”

However, for individuals not so well versed in the ins and outs of the extension program, the exact nature and uniqueness of the extension school undergraduate degree might not be so clear. For at the end of the day, accomplished extension school students participate in the same commencement exercises and wear a cap and gown just like all the other Harvard graduates. The diplomas they are handed, however, bear a slightly different name. Extension school students receive an AA (Associate in Arts) or an ALB (Bachelor of Liberal Arts), a degree that differs in some respects from the more traditional BA. When Ouchida talks about the extension school degrees, however, he emphasizes their similarities to the traditional undergraduate degrees.

“For an extension school student to say he or she has an Harvard undergraduate degree would not be incorrect,” he said. “People will probably always ask them for further explanation, but that comes with the course. We have to remember that Harvard offers two types of undergraduate degrees, one earned through work at the college and one earned in extension. The extension school is simply just one of the 12 schools at Harvard and operates much like all the others.”

Some extension school students, however, will always be skeptical about what their degree means to the outside world. Because much like Huff pointed out, there is a difference between the perceived status of the undergraduates—and their degrees. In order to take classes at the extension school, one does not need to apply or to pass any rigorous academic standards. The true test for extension school students comes when they are applying for entrance into the degree program or Harvard’s extensive world of financial aid. In order to receive a degree from Harvard, students must take a number of classes at the extension school—usually a load that comes with studying at the school for over a year—and receive grades consistently above the B-level.

Plummer, who almost transferred to Cornell University after completing her freshman year at the University of South Carolina, says that she has encountered students who are troubled by the uncertainty of how night school degrees are perceived in the real world.

“I met an amazing guy in one of my classes from Singapore who was constantly worried about having a night school degree,” Plummer said during a momentary break from attending to customers. “He left for a while, traveled around the world working, but then he got burned out and came back and re-enrolled. We can never know for sure, so I just try to enjoy the classes for what they are. I’m most definitely there for the academics.”

According to Ouchida, many of the more driven extension school students come away from the program with astounding success—many even going on to Harvard graduate schools. For high-scoring students like Huff this sort of encouragement becomes a major motivating force. Having found a real academic passion for English, particularly romantic poetry, at Harvard, Huff hopes to go on to earn a Ph.D.

“I love the academic life now and that is almost strange to me,” she said. “The extension school really offered me an opportunity to be the best possible student I could really ever be. The professors had such high expectations of me—expectations that I had never even had for myself before. I didn’t even take the SAT, and I never thought I’d want to enter the academic life. This has really been amazing for me.”

According to Linda Spencer, the Assistant Director of the Office of Career Services, the amazing fact about extension school students is that many of them are somewhat easy to place because so many of them come away from Harvard with many years of work experience under their belt. This sort of situation makes many students see the idea of falsely exaggerating their image and association with Harvard as unnecessary.

“What I find overwhelmingly is that extension schools students really don’t want to misrepresent themselves,” Spencer said. “They know that they don’t have a regular BA, but they do have a bona fide Harvard degree and are careful to explain that to people.”

However, even though work experience might help extension school students in the long run, many find that living the life of a working professional and a college undergraduate simultaneously extracts a heavy price.

“I’m really able to balance my schedule in this program, “ Plummer said. “I work here at the bar, and have time to write, and both of those things make me happy. I was burned out on the traditional college life very early on. The only real loss, though, is that at Harvard, I’ve been a mostly B student. I know that my potential is much higher than that, but it comes to this point when I just have to accept that I don’t have the time.”

For many of the college’s students, the idea of being an excellent student and an athlete, or a dancer, or a journal editor, seems itself like a lofty goal. But many extension school students are used to taking on so many roles that many of them think they can do it all. Consider Linda’s words as she stood in the backyard in the Fly, the night before she’d have to wake up early in the morning to work behind the counter at Starbucks.

“I think I might join the Caribbean Dance Troupe,” she said, as she stood between huddles of drunken college students. “I don’t have that much time, but I think it might be interesting. They know I’m an extension school student, and they told me I could come anyway. Besides, I think I can take a bit of time off work.”