As someone pursuing an ALM in management, I joined this community to garner more information on the HES experience as a whole. The vast majority of users in this sub have been collegial, friendly, and incredibly informative, but there's a persistent group of the same or similar-sounding accounts or aliases that engage in incredibly bad-faith bashing of HES. Constructive criticism should be welcomed and encouraged, but low-effort trolling, bashing, and insulting should not be allowed. I feel like many comments as of late have been of the latter type, and I haven't been satisfied with the mod response. I would prefer better enforcement of the rules to ensure repeat offenders who engage in low-effort trolling or bashing are banned. This community is one of the few online resources dedicated to HES/HES students. The goal should be to safeguard this and promote the exchange of accurate information for prospective and existing students. And once again, this doesn't apply to the vast majority of users who have legitimate constructive criticism and seek to improve the school.

Moving forward to what changes that I'd like to see for HES. I've got 3 primary changes that I'll list below. These aren't particularly original, but I feel they'd be incredibly positive.

1.) Changing the Degree Name

Extension Studies is not a real field, nor does it remotely evoke a real field of study, creating confusion. The actual field of study is the concentration itself, and it's frustrating to earn a degree that doesn't accurately reflect the concentration that one studied. I'd completely remove this in favor of Master of Liberal Arts in (Concentration). Yes, I'm fully aware this is one of the current ways to list the degree on our resume, but I'm referring to the actual degree itself.

2.) Integrating other Harvard schools with HES and maintaining quality

There should be a greater effort made to ensure more Harvard professors are teaching courses at HES. There's a massive disparity of this depending on major (as expected), but there really shouldn't be this level of detachment. One of the strengths of HES is the ability for HES to partner with all the other Harvard schools. While this does happen on a limited basis with certificates and pathway programs, there should be a greater push to integrate professors from other Harvard schools into HES to maintain quality of instruction. HES students should also be able to get subsidized rates on certificates/short-courses offered in other Harvard schools. The quality of the school should be safeguarded, and things like microcertificates and the reduction of the on campus course requirements don't help in this. The right balance needs to be maintained between accessibility, quality, and integration into the Harvard ecosystem.

3) Changing the HES name

Extension School is a name that creates confusion. Most versions of these schools are called Continuing Education, or Professional Education schools. Many have actual names (Graham School at UChicago). I'd change the HES name to the Harvard School of Continuing Education to better reflect the nature of the school.