Harvard University Top Questions

The ambience is very competitive. We have the case methodology for every class where student participation is very critical.

I'm going in for biomedical engineering. It's intimidating that it's mostly make dominated.

Yea, all the professors know my name

Great!

Student friendly, innovative and advanced.

Classes are Harvard are usually described as impersonal, "taught by grad students", etc. In my experience those claims are untrue. There are some large lecture classes but any class with more than 20 students in it is required to hold smaller, break-out weekly sections (these are usually taught by grad students). Professors are incredibly accessible, because they are required to hold office hours each week (these regularly fill up). Outside of the structured access, I know many students who get coffee with TA's and professors. The quality of the education is another matter. I don't think the content or quality of the academics at Harvard are that much different than another other top-tier American university. Moreover, the liberal arts nature of the academic requirements results in many students graduating having gained no practical skills from their education. That lack of training is supplemented heavily by students' extracurricular pursuits instead.

Classes are Harvard are usually described as impersonal, "taught by grad students", etc. In my experience those claims are untrue. There are some large lecture classes but any class with more than 20 students in it is required to hold smaller, break-out weekly sections (these are usually taught by grad students). Professors are incredibly accessible, because they are required to hold office hours each week (these regularly fill up). Outside of the structured access, I know many students who get coffee with TA's and professors. The quality of the education is another matter. I don't think the content or quality of the academics at Harvard are that much different than another other top-tier American university. Moreover, the liberal arts nature of the academic requirements results in many students graduating having gained no practical skills from their education. That lack of training is supplemented heavily by students' extracurricular pursuits instead.

The beginning classes are really large and taught by very famous professors, while the higher level classes get much more personal and concentrated. My beginning Economics class had 800 people, while upper level ones have 10-15 sometimes.

Academics at Harvard are incredibly rigorous in that you're challenged to a much higher degree than you were in high school. At the same time, there are so many different classes and concentrations ("Majors") so you can form your own path in academics. One thing to be aware of is that Harvard is a liberal arts institution and NOT pre-professional. Therefore, while you'll have groups and resources for pre-law, pre-med, finance, accounting, and consulting, you'll never find that here in official academic courses.

Great. I have no complaints at all. I will preface by saying that there are only 60 people in my major so my experience might be atypical. However, I love most of my courses and find that they are incredibly stimulating. I also do not really find myself doing busy work and can see the merit in most of my assignments.