Does Harvard take externship credit? Forum

[Transferthrowaway]

Friend did a 1L summer externship with a fed d. ct. through our school and is transferring to H next year. She is wondering if she should withdraw or complete. Will H give her transfer credit for it?

I'm guessing no, but she wanted me to post here and ask for her.

[SoCow]

is it P/NP grading? Most schools won't accept non-graded credit.

[Transferthrowaway]

She say it is "half P/NP and half letter grade." How? I have no idea.

[GeePee]

Who cares if she gets credit? If this is her summer job, finish it up, make a positive impression, get a reference out of it. I'm pretty sure withdrawing isn't an option worth pursuing here.

[SoCow]

I'm assuming she's going to finish up the actual externship. I think the case here is that she probably has a report to do about her experience to turn in before completing the externship course.

Best thing to do is call Harvard's registrar and ask them. you could even do it anonymously for her.

[vanwinkle]

Who cares if she gets credit? If this is her summer job, finish it up, make a positive impression, get a reference out of it. I'm pretty sure withdrawing isn't an option worth pursuing here.

This. You don't bail on summer positions, especially ones with connections like federal district courts. If she withdrew, she wouldn't really be able to put it on her resume, because otherwise future employers might go looking for a reference, and hear that she bailed abruptly. That shit does not look good.

[09042014]

Who cares if she gets credit? If this is her summer job, finish it up, make a positive impression, get a reference out of it. I'm pretty sure withdrawing isn't an option worth pursuing here.

This. You don't bail on summer positions, especially ones with connections like federal district courts. If she withdrew, she wouldn't really be able to put it on her resume, because otherwise future employers might go looking for a reference, and hear that she bailed abruptly. That shit does not look good.

The OP probably doesn't mean bailing on the judge, but just withdrawing from the course credit part. But it has to be way to late for that.

[Transferthrowaway]

"im finishing up the job with the judge but the course requires all of these final projects i need to do."

It sounds like she could finish the job with the judge and he wouldnt even know she didn't finish the coursework for the credit through our old school. I think there aren't any repercussions to bailing on the class side of things other than not getting credit (which may not even transfer to H anyway).

She called the registrar's office and found out the registrar is out until next week.

[vanwinkle]

The OP probably doesn't mean bailing on the judge, but just withdrawing from the course credit part. But it has to be way to late for that.

If that's the case, since she's withdrawing from the school entirely, she should just ask them. Since she's already withdrawing they might be willing to work with her, and if not, then she knows she just needs to complete the requirements.

BTW, HLS does not accept transfer credits for any courses except those fulfilling the mandatory 1L course requirements. You can't even transfer your credits for Con Law, since at HLS it's not a mandatory 1L course (you can still get them to recognize that you've taken it as a prerequisite for other courses, but this is a separate issue). This externship doesn't sound like it'd fit into the ordinary 1L classes, so I don't think it'd transfer over in any useful capacity.

Transfer grades also aren't factored in for honors calculations. So, really, what grade she gets is practically irrelevant.

[Transferthrowaway]

The OP probably doesn't mean bailing on the judge, but just withdrawing from the course credit part. But it has to be way to late for that.

If that's the case, since she's withdrawing from the school entirely, she should just ask them. Since she's already withdrawing they might be willing to work with her, and if not, then she knows she just needs to complete the requirements.

BTW, HLS does not accept transfer credits for any courses except those fulfilling the mandatory 1L course requirements. You can't even transfer your credits for Con Law, since at HLS it's not a mandatory 1L course (you can still get them to recognize that you've taken it as a prerequisite for other courses, but this is a separate issue). This externship doesn't sound like it'd fit into the ordinary 1L classes, so I don't think it'd transfer over in any useful capacity.

Transfer grades also aren't factored in for honors calculations. So, really, what grade she gets is practically irrelevant.

Thanks man. She appreciates the info.

[D.Wilde]

The OP probably doesn't mean bailing on the judge, but just withdrawing from the course credit part. But it has to be way to late for that.

If that's the case, since she's withdrawing from the school entirely, she should just ask them. Since she's already withdrawing they might be willing to work with her, and if not, then she knows she just needs to complete the requirements.

BTW, HLS does not accept transfer credits for any courses except those fulfilling the mandatory 1L course requirements. You can't even transfer your credits for Con Law, since at HLS it's not a mandatory 1L course (you can still get them to recognize that you've taken it as a prerequisite for other courses, but this is a separate issue). This externship doesn't sound like it'd fit into the ordinary 1L classes, so I don't think it'd transfer over in any useful capacity.

Transfer grades also aren't factored in for honors calculations. So, really, what grade she gets is practically irrelevant.

Right... but possibly a bit misleading. It's not that they won't transfer your credits, it's that they treat your 1L year as a black hole. Your HLS transcript will show absolutely nothing about your 1L year (or the summer after it, presumably). You won't start out "behind" or "ahead" of "normal" HLS 2Ls in terms of credits, but you will have to make up for topics which HLS's 1L curriculum covers that your school's didn't. The typical additional transfer requirements are a course that addresses Legislation & Regulation (1L Legislation class, Taxation, Admin, and Securities Regulation have counted for this in the past), and an International/Comparative law class. Also, in order to take any course with Constitutional Law as a prerequisite, as Vanwinkle referred to you'll need to have the HLS Professor whose course you're trying to take confirm that your Con Law course was similar to an HLS one, typically by providing the syllabus, start and end date of the course, and weekly meeting times.

[mebeSajid]

"im finishing up the job with the judge but the course requires all of these final projects i need to do."

It sounds like she could finish the job with the judge and he wouldnt even know she didn't finish the coursework for the credit through our old school. I think there aren't any repercussions to bailing on the class side of things other than not getting credit (which may not even transfer to H anyway).

She called the registrar's office and found out the registrar is out until next week.

To add to this (as I'm taking the same externship, but with a different judge) - the reports are a total PITA to do. You end up writing 50 pages of journals/readings papers/emo diaries/journal posts/other random crap on top of the actually very interesting and substantive work you get to do in court. I don't blame the person for not wanting to finish the coursework part of the externship, but this seems like a question that is properly directed to Harvard, isn't it?