More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard. Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights. “This is an ethical stance that we’re taking,” Safi says. We also hear from history professor Alison Frank Johnson, one of over 100 faculty members who voted to confer degrees on the 13 seniors, who describes Harvard’s punishment of them as an “egregious departure from past precedent,” as was the board’s subsequent overruling of faculty. “We hoped then that the Corporation, as it has always done in the past, would accept our recommendations for degree recipients and allow the 13 to graduate, which they chose not to do.”
More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard.
Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights.
Learning a profession is sadly a relatively small part of how an institution helps you get a good job.
There are a number of jobs that have an insurmountable check box for “has college degree” in the HR checklist. Doesn’t matter if every interviewer says “hire him”, HR will refuse. Hell about three years into my career, my employer lost some records including their documentation that I had a degree, and they had informed me that I had three months to get my university to prove my status again, or my job would be terminated, that I had gotten and by their own admission I could not possibly have had if hadn’t proven it before, but their process was clear, so I had to get them what they wanted to keep the job.
Further, there are particularly exclusive companies that may insist on a particular set of colleges, e.g a list of ivy League universities that they will accept applicants from and nothing else will cut it, because they advertise their ivy League credentials to clients.
Even without a formal list, the names carry weight. When I was working on vetting candidates, which was usually a pretty grueling interview process, management had one guy skip the interviews and go straight to job offer because they saw MIT as their school.
In my experience, the people from there are not special and are not particularly better equipped for the sorts of work I deal with, but branding carries a lot of weight.
That sounds like a rough experience friend, but if I was working at a company that needed to check up on my documentation after working there for some time - I’d probably find a new job where I wasn’t just employee 253966.
To your point about names carrying their weight - that’s a problem in itself: what about those that don’t go to ivy league? What about those that do that simply lack any marketable skill outside of where they went?
I agree that the interview process at a lot of aforementioned places is particularly awful. Once working there it typically doesn’t improve. The facilities are nice enough, sure… but I’ve seen far too many people working for companies like that get laid off regardless of how performant they were. They are just a line item.
The point I made initially was that many jobs do not require the degree to do the work. Many professions do not benefit from a 4 year college building a curriculum around now outdated information.
There are good companies and good professions that do not have those requirements.
That sounds like a rough experience friend, but if I was working at a company that needed to check up on my documentation after working there for some time - I’d probably find a new job where I wasn’t just employee 253966
It was a mild inconvenience inflicted by a bureaucratic HR I almost never dealt with. If I acted out by walking on the job, well that job was paying about 40% more than other offers I had on the table. It simply was an anecdote to demonstrate that some companies have formalities around the degree.
To your point about names carrying their weight - that’s a problem in itself: what about those that don’t go to ivy league? What about those that do that simply lack any marketable skill outside of where they went?
Not saying it is the most rational or the most fair, I’m simply saying it is a thing, and a thing that these would-be-graduates likely paid a lot of money for, specifically. Some of them might have had offers lined up at ‘Harvard-only’ companies (which sounds terrible, but I’ve heard it’s a thing and a thing that earn lots of money). Also, what if these would-be grads are in that camp of ‘no marketable skills apart from the name on their degree’? Then for them they especially want that institutional name on their degree.
I’ve seen far too many people working for companies like that get laid off regardless of how performant they were. They are just a line item.
This is good advice, but keep in mind you could lose your job wherever, so it’s less a game of trying to find out where you won’t get laid off, but about mitigation for if it happens, in terms of contractual severance and savings. Sure if a place is particularly layoff happy, maybe not worth the trouble, but no matter how personal and respectful the treatment you get is, layoff is always in the picture, up to and including the employer just completely going out of business.
There are good companies and good professions that do not have those requirements.
Sure, but these people paid for a Harvard degree and are presumably on a career track where that would be very valuable. The good companies and good professions may not be as lucrative for those graduation candidates as options that the Harvard degree would open up.
Learning a profession is sadly a relatively small part of how an institution helps you get a good job.
There are a number of jobs that have an insurmountable check box for “has college degree” in the HR checklist. Doesn’t matter if every interviewer says “hire him”, HR will refuse. Hell about three years into my career, my employer lost some records including their documentation that I had a degree, and they had informed me that I had three months to get my university to prove my status again, or my job would be terminated, that I had gotten and by their own admission I could not possibly have had if hadn’t proven it before, but their process was clear, so I had to get them what they wanted to keep the job.
Further, there are particularly exclusive companies that may insist on a particular set of colleges, e.g a list of ivy League universities that they will accept applicants from and nothing else will cut it, because they advertise their ivy League credentials to clients.
Even without a formal list, the names carry weight. When I was working on vetting candidates, which was usually a pretty grueling interview process, management had one guy skip the interviews and go straight to job offer because they saw MIT as their school.
In my experience, the people from there are not special and are not particularly better equipped for the sorts of work I deal with, but branding carries a lot of weight.
That sounds like a rough experience friend, but if I was working at a company that needed to check up on my documentation after working there for some time - I’d probably find a new job where I wasn’t just employee 253966.
To your point about names carrying their weight - that’s a problem in itself: what about those that don’t go to ivy league? What about those that do that simply lack any marketable skill outside of where they went?
I agree that the interview process at a lot of aforementioned places is particularly awful. Once working there it typically doesn’t improve. The facilities are nice enough, sure… but I’ve seen far too many people working for companies like that get laid off regardless of how performant they were. They are just a line item.
The point I made initially was that many jobs do not require the degree to do the work. Many professions do not benefit from a 4 year college building a curriculum around now outdated information.
There are good companies and good professions that do not have those requirements.
It was a mild inconvenience inflicted by a bureaucratic HR I almost never dealt with. If I acted out by walking on the job, well that job was paying about 40% more than other offers I had on the table. It simply was an anecdote to demonstrate that some companies have formalities around the degree.
Not saying it is the most rational or the most fair, I’m simply saying it is a thing, and a thing that these would-be-graduates likely paid a lot of money for, specifically. Some of them might have had offers lined up at ‘Harvard-only’ companies (which sounds terrible, but I’ve heard it’s a thing and a thing that earn lots of money). Also, what if these would-be grads are in that camp of ‘no marketable skills apart from the name on their degree’? Then for them they especially want that institutional name on their degree.
This is good advice, but keep in mind you could lose your job wherever, so it’s less a game of trying to find out where you won’t get laid off, but about mitigation for if it happens, in terms of contractual severance and savings. Sure if a place is particularly layoff happy, maybe not worth the trouble, but no matter how personal and respectful the treatment you get is, layoff is always in the picture, up to and including the employer just completely going out of business.
Sure, but these people paid for a Harvard degree and are presumably on a career track where that would be very valuable. The good companies and good professions may not be as lucrative for those graduation candidates as options that the Harvard degree would open up.