<p>I'm curious what people think is the most impressive concentration at Harvard.</p>
<p>What do you mean: most impressive as in most prestigious if one concentrates in it, or most impressive as in best supporting department?</p>
<p>Most impressive/prestigious in the sense that others (employers, people in general) think of it as impressive.</p>
<p>Fields that are beyond the reasonable capabilities of most poeple and that are intimidating (notation, etc.) tend to be the most impressive. Some common examples: Physics (and Astrophysics), Chemistry, and Mathematics.</p>
<p>Social Studies has a reputation for being impressive. One boys reaction upon finding out another girl was in it was “Oh, well la-dee-dah!” (in a friendly way). It is pretty small, has a lot of resources, and is (as far as I know) the only all honors concentration at Harvard. That means a sophomore and junior tutorial and a mandatory thesis. You actually have to apply to be in it. </p>
<p>The heavy duty sciences also are impressive.</p>
<p>You’re joking, right? There are lots of ‘all honors’ concentrations at Harvard - it’s a meaningless word that doesn’t guarantee you honors at all. And there are lots of concentrations you have to apply to - you have to apply to VES, for example. VES is also honors only.</p>
<p>And when I was at Harvard, social studies definitely did not have an ‘impressive’ reputation. I don’t think employers really care - the Harvard degree alone is impressive, so I’d stop worrying about which concentration will look ‘best’ on your resume! :)</p>
<p>Yes, but even at Haarvard there is a hierarchy to “bestness”</p>
<p>I’d just quickly point out that Social Studies isn’t small- as of December 2008, it had 296 concentrators. As far as I can tell found Social Studies is the third largest concentration at Harvard, behind only Economics and Government, while just barely beating out Psychology (which has 288). (It is possible I’m missing another larger concentration- they just don’t offer the data in an easy way to search or sort).</p>
<p>Chemical and Physical Biology earns much respect at every college that has the option. It tests a wide range of abilities including, mathematics, laboratory skills, memorization, and adapting to a high volume of material.</p>
<p>The idea that you would choose your concentration based on what you imagined “employers [and] people in general think of as impressive” – that alone ought to darn well near disqualify you for admission to Harvard. Unfortunately, I suspect Harvard attracts lots of people who think like that – after all, Harvard IS impressive to employers and people in general – and it probably isn’t able to screen all of them out. But I bet it would like to.</p>
<p>^ Who suggested they were going to choose their concentration based on anything in this thread?</p>
<p>This is a weird question. An astrophysics concentration is 0% impressive to someone hiring for a job on Wall Street.</p>
<p>This is a silly, disturbing question, and I agree with JHS.</p>
<p>Harvard is trying to get back to a more old-fashioned emphasis on learning for learning’s sake (and the arts), according to some speeches last year by Drew Faust. A campus full of people engaged in things that geunuinely interest them is much better than a campus full of people who are thinking about their resume.</p>
<p>Dwight, I believe an astrophysics concentration is very impressive to people on Wall St. They used to refer to their quant people as “rocket scientists”, and some of them WERE rocket scientists before going into banking.</p>
<p>Also, one of the most interesting businessmen I have ever met, who was (briefly) a multi-billionaire, had a PhD in astronomy.</p>
<p>Hey, even Fischer Black of Black-Scholes fame was a physicist/mathematician (from Harvard, too) before he went into economics, and was able to recognize that the Black-Scholes partial differential equation could be transformed based on the heat equation, which was already well-understood and modeled.</p>
<p>My point here is that you should concentrate in what you’re good at, because it will open the most doors for you. Don’t pick something based on its “prestige” or how much it may impress – it’ll only get you so far before you get bottlenecked.</p>
<p>Someone who goes to another Ivy school mentioned that the Wall Street types like to hire chemistry majors from their school, due to the rigor it involves, and they usually find some very bright employees in that pool.</p>
<p>I’ve always been something of a Classics major groupie - maybe because that’s what DH was . . .</p>
<p>@Nick04 Ok, sorry, geez. It doesn’t guarantee honors, obviously, but it is all honors in that you have to do a thesis. And I don’t know about when you were here, but nowadays Social Studies is most assuredly considered impressive.</p>
<p>How good is the English/Creative Writing program?</p>
<p>MorganSimone: [A</a> Track of One?s Own | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/2/21/a-track-of-ones-own-one/]A”>A Track of One’s Own | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson) and [Do</a> the Write Thing | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/4/15/do-the-write-thing-seven-years/]Do”>Do the Write Thing | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>I might add that this conversation is rather silly. In general, people think of mathematics as being a very difficult concentration and economics as being a very easy one. But there’s a group of hardcore economics concentrators (1011s + grad classes) who have taken a far more challenging courseload than the group of “slacker” math concentrators (21s, 101, etc).</p>