Summer School 2006 Course Catalogue

The Summer School catalogue is out. You can pick up a copy at 51 Brattle St., or browse online. Summer School courses can count for undergraduate or graduate credit for Extension School degrees.

One special aspect of Summer School classes is that many are only offered during the summer -- there is no Extension School equivalent. This is often because the Harvard professors who teach them don't have time except during the summer, or they are taught by visiting faculty from other universities. Summer School courses are also shorter than regular Extension School courses, although in my experience the instructors try to cram in an entire semester's worth of reading and writing into a two-month period. One of the most challenging classes academically and intellectually I have taken at Harvard was Sally Hadden's History of the Old South in 2003. Sally has a Harvard Ph.D. but teaches at FSU; she comes up to Cambridge every summer to conduct research (her areas of interest are the history of the South and the American Revolution) and teach at the Summer school. She offers two classes this summer: The American Revolution and History of the US Constitution. As much as I'd like to take both, I won't be doing so because they meet during the day and they are outside of my own focus -- modern Chinese history and Chinese media. However, I may take Film and History in Postwar Japan and Post-Mao China. It seems interesting and relevant; the question is whether I will have enough time -- I will probably start writing my thesis within the next few months and should be going full steam ahead during the summer months.

Cost is another concern, too: Summer school classes are $2,200, compared to Extension School's current $1,450 course tuition (graduate credit).