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A2A.I think you should keep in mind that James Dowdell‘s answer is going to be based on his experience, which is informed by his department within both Extension and Harvard Proper (that appears to be tech/software/something-of-that-sort). My reply is informed by my differing departmental experiences. While I will not dare to argue that there aren’t possibly professors from some schools that “look down” on extension, I believe they are in the extreme minority (if they exist, at all). Keep in mind that my own experience with Harvard communities comes from extension, psychology, religion, and law professors. MY experience suggests that the general the Harvard faculty highly respect extension—for several reasons, but those are beyond the scope of your question. In my experience, this is especially true in psychology, where even the faculty that don’t teach at extension have commented on its special place at HU to those that do (and those that do have shared that).[math]\text{WHAT DO PROFESSORS THINK OF STUDENTS?}\tag*{}[/math]Most professors that teach at HES do it because the quality of students is worlds different than those at Harvard college (according to reports from several profs that teach for Extension). They (extension students) are often older, they bring sometimes decades of career experience into the room, they are grounded and [usually lol] already know what they’re doing in life. Discussions (dare I say even debates!) are more lively and seminar-esque, and they are incredibly motivated to earn their degrees - having already worked 8–10 hours during the day before flocking to the nocturnal classrooms. (When I attended, I was working 12+ hours a day running a successful startup while living in MA to attend night classes.) I actually found that ALL professors, at ANY university I’ve attended, enjoy teaching non-traditional students because they are usually so full of diversity. [Edit 12/1/2020: as someone who now teaches undergrads and grad students, I absolutely LOVE teaching non-trad students… massive difference, imo.] To be fair, Harvard courses in any of the schools are carefully curated to provide a deeply diverse learning experience. I would just argue that extension adds an extra layer due to the demographic/vocational makeup of the student body.[math]\text{ISN'T IT JUST "PAYING FOR" A HARVARD DIPLOMA?}\tag*{}[/math]I disagree with James’ illusion that anyone can pay for their Harvard degree via extension (perhaps I misunderstood him though). I actually think this is backward. A proportion of Harvard College students are actually legacy admits, which essentially means their parents are alumni ($). This is NOT to say that they aren’t brilliant as well - certainly, they are. But amongst an application of LOTS of brilliant kids (possibly even eventual extension students), the legacies will have an advantage—one that essentially is paid for. This is not true of all college students, of course. But it is worth mentioning. Btw, the minute you become a Harvard alum, the alum association starts hitting you up for donations… arguably children of HES alumni would have a possible slight advantage, but I have no idea exactly how true that really is.Contrast that with extension. No one really has to bust a gut “paying” for credits because they are highly affordable ($500 per graduate-credit is very competitive [EDIT 11/17/2020: This has gone up]). But money really doesn’t matter; if you don’t make certain grades in the course, you cannot move forward. Period. I have known people who actually were denied admission to Extension. So the idea that anyone can get in, is a myth. But certainly, I’ll agree: it’s WORLDS less selective/political/competitive than the college, law, business, or medical school. Money isn’t what gets one into an extension degree program—dedication, hard work, and brains are. Also remember that of all extension students, including those that didn’t really want a degree, only 3% ever actually obtain a degree. I think a huge reason for this, is that it’s hard. Harvard (I think) knows we got in less selectively, so that is their way of “selecting out” those that shouldn’t have “Harvard” on their CV. I’ve said a few times that it’s the “backwards admissions process.”[math]\text{IS IT PRESTIGIOUS?}\tag*{}[/math]Arguing whether Harvard University Extension school is or isn’t prestigious is just plain stupid. It’s prestigious in its own right when compared to almost any other state or public school in the country. However, debating the level of prestige might merit a bit of consideration… if you want to compare it to other Harvard schools, Princeton, Stanford, other Ivies and other Non-Ivy-Biggies.I do not believe it is viewed (in the Boston-area) as quite as “prestigious” as the College, Medical, Law, Business School, or MIT. We could debate other schools like Education or Design, (or outside institutions like Tufts, BC, BU, etc.) but again, that’s beyond the scope of this answer. I do, however, believe that my experience at Harvard Extension certainly outranked (in both quality and prestige) almost any state school or private school that is not an ivy - unless it was a program for which that school is highly known and respected.If you plan to reside outside of Boston… or really outside of New England, the school affiliation becomes less of a talking point. It really would only come up with another Harvard alum, or when someone asks you how you got into Harvard (in which case you need to be clear about the lower admission criteria of Extension, if appropriate to go into such detail). Otherwise, people in Montana or Louisiana probably aren’t going to know squat about Harvard College vs. Harvard Law vs. Harvard Design vs. Harvard Extension vs. Harvard GSAS.[math]\text{WHAT OTHER SCHOOLS & [/math][math]EMPLOYERS[/math][math] THINK?}\tag*{}[/math]If you plan to attend Extension for a bachelor’s degree, in hopes of gaining admission to medical school, law school, grad school, nursing school, etc., then you stand a very good chance of success. For evidence on how other institutions (not faculty, not students, not employers, not Quorans) view the quality of extension, look to the schools which have accepted us for further study - Harvard Medicine & Law, Yale Medical and Nursing, Duke Medical and Law, Carnegie, Stanford… the list is very impressive and quite long. I have no doubt that my experience at Harvard helped me get into both law school and my Ph.D. Call the good folks on Brattle Street for more information on schools that have accepted Extension alums.But, keep in mind that sometimes a university known for a particular field will have a stronger program in that field - obviously. That could come up when you start looking for a job and competing against folks who studied business at Kellogg, or programming at Stevens.An A.L.M. in Business is not going to carry the weight of a Harvard Business School M.B.A. Nor will it carry the weight of a Wharton or Kellogg M.B.A. The A.L.B. in Computer Science program may not surpass the prestige of an undergraduate CS degree from CalTech or Georgia Tech …and so on. But the majority of degrees from the majority of schools will not be viewed as necessarily better than the Harvard A.L.B. or A.L.M., so long as you are not deceptive about your degree. I would add that one caveat where our school really shines is in the pre-med program for the A.L.B. Our A.L.B. pre-med grads really do get accepted into some of the top medical schools in the country, including HMS of course.You really need to have a plan, and assess how a Harvard Extension degree fits into that plan, either academically or vocationally.[math]\text{SO... SHOULD I APPLY?}\tag*{}[/math]The point is, which I think James really brought home in his answer: Harvard Extension’s prestige is different in one main way: nonselective admissions processes. When people ask me what extension is, I simply say it is Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, mostly for adults, and classes are mostly at night with some also online. When they say “How the hell did you get into Harvard,” I laugh and say that my program’s admissions were much less selective than most programs at Harvard, and based more on the quality of work done within the school. I say that if you can prove your ability to do high-quality work, you’ll get in. I say that it’s easier to get into, but no less difficult to get out of. I also often encourage people to consider it for themselves, and I do not shy away from explaining the non-traditional nature of it (with that said, I also don’t talk-down my degree or go out of my way to send massive signals that my degree is of any lesser value).Go to Extension because you want kick-ass professors, an amazing campus/collegial/cohort experience, excellent research experience, access to the countries second most powerful library second only to the Library of Congress, and qualification into further graduate experiences… do not go simply so you can drop the H-Bomb (but that is an added bonus, and one that I feel I’ve earned, not through selective admissions, but through hard work).- RCYou can read more at Ryan R. Cooper's answer to Are degrees issued by Harvard Extension School different from the ones issued by Harvard University?

This may not sound like I’m answering the question about political correctness, but bear with me — I will address it directly, in a little while.So, I wrote a long post elsewhere on Quora, and I got attacked by someone named Vaudwan HandleyShe hurled abuse at me for calling Donald Trump a narcissistic sociopath, saying I had no citations to back things up, and she had studied psychology but I had not. I wrote back and explained that I read fact-checked periodicals, and thousands of psychologists and psychiatrists, some of them prominent people in their field, at Harvard, Yale and so on, have called Trump a narcissistic sociopath. Shrinks avoided saying anything publicly during the 2016 election because ever since some shrinks sounded off about Barry Goldwater’s mental health, there has been a “Goldwater Rule” in place, to keep them from doing that. But in Trump’s case, we have far more footage than ever before, and far more access to his ramblings (tweets, etc) than with anyone else, and some experts think he poses such a serious threat, they are breaking that Goldwater Rule and speaking out. I provided a bunch of links to reputable newspapers and magazines, to back up what I said. She then wrote an angry response, full of passages like this:You can throw whatever you want at me but you cannot go head-to-head with me about a narcissist I don't care what you read there not psychology manuals.just because you read your hand pick articles does not qualify you as an expert.Since she had been skeptical of me as an academic, I remarked upon her many run-on sentences and lack of proofreading, as an academic, which really seemed to upset her. She wound up deleting her challenge to me to provide citations, and deleting my response in which I did provide them — our whole exchange.Today, I found her harassing me on my personal Facebook page. She put derisive responses on seven posts of mine. I had posted a picture of myself at a theater that produced a play of mine recently, and she wrote under it:So, I blocked her on Facebook, and I wandered over to her Quora profile, to see what questions she was answering. On her profile page she has an answer to this question though, oddly, I don’t see it here among the answers to this question. On her Quora page, her answer to this question about political correctness is this:Is political correctness a law?Vaudwan Handley, former Self-employedAnswered 38m agoNo it's just a control mechanism by the left you know get in line, don't complain and follow the leader that's political correctness along with you must speak like the rest of us on the left… just more form of control and oppressionI wanted to warn people about this Quoran because she’s pretty hostile, and you should know that if you waste time having a long exchange with her, and you spend time doing research and citing sources, she’s liable to delete the whole thing — so if you choose to engage with her, I’d recommend making a copy of the exchange as you go along, so that you can post it again, if you like. Beyond that, you should be aware that she may follow the BNBR guidelines, more or less, here on Quora, but she is liable to look you up and to harass you in other areas of the internet — this is a heads up to the community about a scary person.And why do I maintain that this is also a post about political correctness? Political correctness is not a law. It’s a concept related to the Be Nice, Be Respectful policy here on Quora. It’s also a term of derision Right-wing people use to mock those they disagree with who say that, as a general rule, we should try to be nice to other people and to treat all people with consideration and respect. It’s sad that here in the US, a lot of people on the Right have walked away from those basic Golden Rule type principles. The apotheosis of this trend toward rudeness, bigotry and cruelty on the Right, obviously, is Donald Trump. People vote for him, support him, attend his rallies — and if we ask them: Why do you support a man who brags about being a sexual predator, mocks a disabled journalist, lies every day, bellowed for a Muslim Ban, launched his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists, hurts refugee children on the border on purpose, encourages physical violence toward those he disagrees with, and so on — his supporters sneer and say: “Oh, you’re so politically correct! I like how Trump attacks politically correctness!”What they’re really saying is that they’re fine with the degradation of our national discourse, fine with cruelty for its own sake, fine with schoolyard bullying and a betrayal of the concept in our Declaration of Independence that we all are created equal. They are fine with those things happening at the highest level of our country.It’s ironic that Vaudwan Handley speaks of control and oppression on the Left, since the intimidation games she plays are related to mechanisms of control and oppression that silence people, often progressive people, online — like what happened to women during Gamergate. We know that Trump likes to punch down, publicly, at individuals, and when he targets someone, often a woman or POC, for abuse, his supporters enthusiastically respond with harassment online, and worse.It’s also ironic when she says it’s everyone on the Left that speaks the same way — when we know that there is a “line of the day” at FOX News that every “journalist” there is handed to spout, as if spontaneously expressing a personal opinion. And if I had a dollar for every time someone on the Right remarks on a post of mine on Quora by commenting “So sad, you have such a bad case of TDS … a clear case of Trump Derangement Syndrome …” I would be a very rich Lefty! Ditto if I had a buck for every time a Quoran on the Right still hollers at me about Hillary and Uranium One, and I have to post, again, what it says about that nothing-burger story at Snopes. Exchanges I have here with some Right-wingers feel more like rolling the rock of Sisyphus up Disinformation Hill, only to have it plow me again with the next post expressing the same dishonest talking points, than like a real exchange with a person who believes in the fact-based universe, has read and thought on his/her own, and come up with a personal viewpoint that differs from mine.And those are my thoughts on political correctness.Tuesday evening update:So, this person Vaudwan Handley continues to harass me in various ways. She’s been writing in the thread where she first challenged me for links (where she reposted our exchange, with her parts edited) that I’ve been doxxing her and threatening her. I’ve asked her to end contact with me. She’s indicated she went to a professor rating site to look me up. She has posted the following posts today, though she may have removed the comments, or been asked to remove them:And this one:I rarely block someone I’ve been debating. I don’t yank conversations from Quora. I don’t report people, even if they say offensive things, and I have never before asked Quora to remove someone, but in this case I will. This should be a safe place for the exchange of ideas. This kind of GamerGate harassment should not happen, on Quora.Reply

People who tell us that college degree is everything, that it matters more than anything else in one’s career want it to be true.I want the moon to be closer to Earth. Does the fact that I want that make the moon any closer to Earth? Of course not.There are three main groups that believe college degree is everything (and who want it to be true).1. CollegesWhy do they want it to be true?It’s pretty obvious, actually. If people will continue to believe that they absolutely need college degree for everything, that college degree is the #1 necessity for an ambitious young person, that you can’t be somebody in this world (today or in the future) without a college degree, then they’ll continue to make a ton of money each year.2. ParentsWhy do they want it to be true?They want to be able to tell themselves that they did a great job as parents and secured their children's future.Basically what they do is fool themselves that it’s possible today to secure their children’s future by providing them with a college degree.Most things you’ll need can be found on the internet for free or for a small fraction of what it once cost to obtain this information. Other things you will be able to learn from people you’ll meet on your path.The most important thing is thus your hunger for learning that you’ll keep throughout your life, not a diploma which says that in your 20s you (or your parents) spent a shitload of money on it.You’re just a few clicks from a book or other resource which oftentimes is way more valuable than the things you'll learn in college.The idea behind sending kids to the most expensive school in town and providing them with a ‘practical’ and ‘prestigious’ college degree, is usually that it will enable them to get the best paying job.But how many of those parents would ever ask Why would my kid need to get the best paying job? The fundamental question.Not many.Why? Because we don’t like fundamental questions. Fundamental questions have the power of turning our entire lives upside down. What if all we’ve come to believe turns out to be wrong?Fundamental questions force us to question everything we believe, our mindset, our entire worldview. This is scary as hell!Most people either don’t know they can ask them (because they were never encouraged or actively discouraged and they’re so focused on doing what everyone else is also doing) or they don’t have the guts to face the possibility of seeing their world in an entirely different light.Why is the best paying job my priority and why should this be also the priority of my kid? is the first question parents should ask themselves before engaging in a rat race and doing their children this special favor of setting them up for the exact same fate.3. Young adultsWhy do they want it to be true?Because they wish the recipe for success was that simple. Work your butt off in your teenage years and in your early 20s and you’ll be set for life. After they get their diplomas most of them very quickly realize that it isn’t that simple. That it’s not enough to wave your college diploma in front of the eyes of potential employers and boast about your college achievements and grades when everyone else is doing exactly the same.They think that the time to learn is only in your 20s and that the only way we can learn is by going to college. If you miss that boat, you’ll always be this ignorant loser. Those people forget that life goes on, and that our ability to learn and reinvent ourselves doesn’t stop there.Young people should remember the following.Your life after college will be much easier if you forget what grades you had in college, what college you went to, and instead get to work like you really mean it, like you had nothing to wave in front of the eyes of those potential employers.Your life after college will be tough if you believe that college sets you up for life and if you’ll go there and wave your diploma in front of the eyes of potential employers. Why? Because that’s precisely what most people do.Most people still think college is the magic bullet.But the reality is that there are many things more important than college degree. Things they usually don’t teach you in college.Things like perseverance, grit, unshakable belief in your ability to achieve your goals, being comfortable with being an outlier, leadership qualities, being able to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm, passion, real hard work, positive mental attitude, the willingness to learn new things, being OK with being wrong, responsibility, admitting to mistakes, apologizing, thinking outside the box, questioning the status quo, always taking action.Why is the college myth still around?Because we believe colleges are places where you will find smarter, more intelligent people.Because we equate being well educated with having a college degree.Because we equate being enlightened with having a college experience.Because we think you have nothing to brag about if you didn’t go to college.Neither of which is necessarily true in my experience.So why do we keep sending young people to college?Because someone will inspire them?There is a ton of video material on YouTube which can inspire and ignite a young soul better than a random college professor.Because they will meet someone who will change their lives?There’s a chance they won’t meet anybody. They will be too busy swotting for exams.Because someone will turn them into / inspire them to be lifelong learners?It doesn’t happen in college at all.In college they will tell you how important it is to stay informed and attend courses within your chosen field. Stay at the top of your game. It’s a no-brainer.They almost never tell you to expand your knowledge, learn new things each day, be hungry, try new, unexpected, untested intersections and come up with creative ideas (quite the opposite — rather they will tell you how things should be done).Colleges spew out experts, not thought leaders and visionaries. Thought leaders and visionaries often have hard time dealing with the rigidity of those institutions. Think teachers and professors who try innovative teaching methods.So why do we still believe that college does magic to young people?Because we still believe it is something we can spend 4 or 5 years on and reap the reward for the rest of our lives.Because we know that with this college degree we will always be those Yale graduates.Because even in our 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s people will admire us when we will tell them we went to Yale.We love it when we can make our lives easier or find a shortcut. And getting that college degree is a yet another way to make your life easier. It’s a shortcut in disguise. It’s hard to get that diploma, but once you have it… - a shortcut.There’s a ton of people with college degrees who can’t find their place in this world/ or find a satisfying job/ or whose lives are just miserable.Why? What happened to that college magic?There is no magic. College magic is a scam.By the way, anyone wants to buy my law school diploma?