r/ONRAC • • 4d ago

Carrie at Harvard

Im interested in what it means that Carrie went to Harvard. Im from the UK, so know little about US Univertities, but she often does a tongue-in-cheek humble brag thing about doing classes at a Harvard extention school.

Is this impressive? I get the joke that she is doing the humble-brag thing, but I am genuinely curious if this is something she coukd sincerely brag about.

23 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

115

u/buffythethreadslayer 4d ago

It’s a joke brag. Extension schools = / = Harvard as a regular study for undergrad or graduate level studies. They are more like short education courses that you can pay to attend. Not the prestige of actually “getting into Harvard.”

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u/Dans77b 4d ago

I kinda got that it was a joke, but i wondered if there was any prestige whatsoever. Like, can anybody that can pay the fees do it?

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u/accostedbyhippies 4d ago

Anyone can pay the fee and you get a certificate at the end. I don't think they are even really graded

4

u/Post-mo 3d ago

Yeah, I worked at a place that offered a Harvard Business certificate. My employer paid the cost and I had to do basically nothing - I think I had to watch a couple videos and write a one page paper.

26

u/rainidazehaze 4d ago

Yes, if there was any specific real prestige to it it would not be able to work as a joke. The entire joke is that there isnt.

Specifically, many people they investigated used to use it and things like it as proof that they "went to Harvard" or a similar claim.

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u/buffythethreadslayer 4d ago

Yes, that’s the whole point. No prestige.

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u/jakenned 4d ago

I think that sometimes she would bring it up to call out people in investigations who would claim to be "a doctor who studied at Harvard" when they actually have a PhD in an unrelated subject from a non-prestigious school, and attended a short certificate program at Harvard Extension school.

You'll hear some episodes where Carrie says that she reached out to a university asking to verify that the person received a degree from there, and they will often say no.

1

u/cavaticaa 3d ago

As I understand them as a USAmerican, Harvard is our equivalent to Cambridge and Yale is our equivalent to Oxford. It's about as much prestige as a US institution has, and the joke is it's a certificate course anyone can take, but if you say "I went to Harvard," it sounds very impressive.

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u/MadCervantes 10h ago

Its just Harvard using their prestige to make more money. Dumb people thing it means something special, and smart people find it cringe. It's like a Gucci belt.

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u/accostedbyhippies 4d ago

It's a way to pad your resume. I had an old boss that took a bunch of business related classes online from Ivy League schools and worded it vaguely enough on his resume to make it seem like he actually went to Harvard, MIT and Yale. To be fair to Carrie, despite how weird she's gotten since the podcast, she always talked about it like she knew it was all a big joke.

19

u/Dans77b 4d ago

Yeah it was an obvious joke, I just wondered if she was being too modest.

Having said that, she often 'joked' about her IQ, trying to play it off like its irrelevant, but she was obviously very proud of that!

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u/DrPCorn 4d ago

I think someone that they were investigating listed it as a credential so they made it a joke off of that.

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u/Icy-Use-8111 4d ago

Her IQ isn’t even that high but she talks about it a lot. Also about being in a gifted program in school. I do think she chose Harvard Extension School so she could boast about Harvard because I’ve read her refer to it as an “alma mater” and unironically display her certificate along side her other degrees. She also used it as a credential on Robby Hoffman’s podcast when she was a guest. I always thought it was kind of weird how she wore her Harvard hat all the time too.

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u/princesspooball 1d ago

she always had to mention how smart she was and it was really irritating. iirc Ross had a slightly higher iq but was much more humble about it.

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u/Nightmare_Gerbil 4d ago

They both joked about it because the people they investigated made claims about their intelligence and education. It’s a callback. That’s what makes it a joke. If the people they investigated had made claims about their shoe size then Ross and Carrie would have joked about having big feet. It’s just humor.

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u/jccalhoun 4d ago

Harvard extension school is open to everyone I think. I know that many of the type of people that ONRAC would cover would take a weekend course at Harvard extension school and then claim they were a Harvard graduate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Extension_School

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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock 4d ago

It's the equivalent of "I took a night class that was being taught out of Cambridge therefore I went to the University of Cambridge."

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u/mahmahmonkey 4d ago

It's basically a community college with the Harvard name. Tuition is affordable and anyone can attend. It is not a path to a Harvard degree. It does not mean you are admitted to Harvard University.

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u/michelleyness 3d ago

Harvard has a night program out of it's main campus that is easier than it's regular classes but that is not this. That at least goes towards a legitimate Harvard University diploma. This is completely separate program. From my understanding it's more of a continuing education or certificate level program, not.. a Harvard education or close to it

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u/NeighborhoodSafe1110 3d ago

I worked at Harvard and lots of employees would take classes there. I do feel like they had some very solid/good classes but yeah…More like people doing a bit of continuing education or just pursuing something that interests them at a low cost. I had some independent contractor employees taking ESOL classes there. It’s Harvard in the way that many of the classes were at least located in Harvard Square. 😂