Darcy Burner’s Degree
My thoughts on this absurd Seattle Times hit on Darcy Burner:
Harvard, as you know, is old and fancy. Consequently, it has a lot of old and fancy terminology and procedures that differ somewhat from the American norm. They don’t, for example, have “teaching assistants” (TAs) instead they have “teaching fellows” (TFs). You don’t live in a “dorm” you live in a “house.” Instead of “RAs” there are “proctors” and “tutors.” And instead of “majors” there are “concentrations.” If I want to communicate some fact about my college experience in a normal way, however, I’ll say that “when I was in college I majored in philosophy, Walid Hussein TAed two of my classes, and my dorm was near Noch’s.” By the same token, there are no minors at Harvard. What Burner did is the Harvard equivalent of doing a joint degree in computer science and economics, though it’s not technically called that and the process (which would involve taking an adequate number of economics courses and then writing a thesis that bridges both subjects) is probably somewhat different from what you might find elsewhere. That she chose not to give a tediously detailed description of the academic procedures of her undergraduate institution is just common sense.
54 Responses to “Darcy Burner’s Degree”
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October 23rd, 2008 at 10:36 am
Burner’s spokesman didn’t help things by referring to her economics program as “a concentration within a degree,” since concentration means something different in a Harvard context.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Speaking as someone who attempted to do a joint CS/Ec degree at Harvard but gave up Ec because coming up with an achievable thesis topic was too difficult, I’d like to point out that it’s almost certain that Darcy Burner knows more about economics than 90% of the members of Congress by virtue of her “degree in computer science”.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:40 am
This also means Darcy Burner, whom I had previously never heard of, is now my favorite Democratic congressional candidate.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 am
It’s also my understanding that Harvard’s CS/Ec degree is also significantly harder and more prestigious than its straight Econ degree (since the latter allows students more flexibility to pick easy classes).
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
Matt, does Harvard not give B.S.’s? It weird that it’s a B.A. in computer science. Do they count it as a social science?
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
I saw the words ‘common sense’ and stopped reading. Unfortunately, I’d also just finished the article.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 am
BTW there are now minors at Harvard…they just instituted them 2 years ago or so.
Alan
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am
There are many schools that only give BAs in mathematics. The (classical) reason is that mathematics is not a empirical science centered around experiment, but an artistic endeavor centered around the creation of correct and readable proofs. BAs in computer science are a hold-over from the fact that, at all of the older universities, they originally formed out of their mathematics departments.
I will say that as an empirical science, computer science is only slightly more rigorous than the social sciences. The “experiments” in your typical computer science research paper are atrocious.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Though Harvard is, I gather, slowly un-weirding itself in a few respects. Exams in January are a thing of the past now. God I hated that. No way to enjoy Christmas break: you’re either stressing out working on seminar papers etc or stressing out with guilt about not working on them. Plus it put you out of sync with every other school in the country not to mention Harvard’s own professional schools, which were all on a rational schedule.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am
Actually, Matt, you’re wrong about this. Burner didn’t get a joint Ec/CS degree (which is possible at Harvard but requires special permission and a thesis which combines the two subjects). She got a CS degree with a focus in Ec, which is an ordinary path to getting honors in the CS concentration and does NOT require any thesis at all. (You need to write a thesis to graduate magna or summa, but it doesn’t need to incorporate your focus.) This sort of thing is unique to the CS concentration, so you probably wouldn’t have heard of it.
I graduated with honors in CS with a focus in Math, and I wouldn’t claim to have a Math degree. (n.b., all the above info was accurate as of ‘02 when I graduated, they may have changed things before or since.)
Having said that, it’s a fairly silly distinction for her opponent’s campaign to get all pedantic about. Certainly some of the most rigorous undergrad economics you can study at Harvard would actually come under the CS or Applied Math concentrations.
But I clicked through to the Seattle Times article expecting it to be egregiously wrong, and other than calling economics a “concentration” within CS (incorrect terminology because of Harvard’s idiotic practice of calling majors “concentrations”) I think it managed to get the facts pretty much right.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
CS is, by and large, a trade and is more akin to plumbing and home electrics than with a science. Understand assignment statements, pointers, and flow of control and you can set out your shingle.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
11: I think that’s a little unfair. Computer Science really IS a science — or at least a philosophical discipline in the same sense as Mathematics. People make a mistake by confusing computer science with the job of programming, which, as you note, is really just a trade. Taking CS classes in order to become a programmer is like learning fluid dynamics in order to be a plumber (ALL ANALOGIES MUST NOW BE PLUMBING-BASED). Anyone who obtains an undergraduate degree in order to become a programmer has made a fairly stupid decision.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
“Preferably,” that is.
Harrumph.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Matt and other members of the Company of Educated Men and Women,
Please note that any discussion of one’s own experience at Harvard needs to start with the phrase, “Well, in my day…”
Preferable followed by a “harrumph” or two.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
duBois, Actually Computer Science is a branch of engineering, not science.
But engineering degrees are considerably harder than the typical science degree at most schools because the students are required to know both the theory and the practice rather than just theory.
CS degrees come in two flavors. There is Computation which is heavily theoretical and requires understanding of advanced math such as category theory that is way beyond the typical undergraduate math. Then there is the applied degree.
If you go to one of the better schools such as MIT, course 6 has absiolutely nothing to do with the trade school stuff and how to be a Cobol jockey or pimp SQL.
Unfortunately Harvard is not one of the better schools for engineering. Their racist and anti-semitic hiring practices meant that they simply never hired the best faculty in the 50s and 60s when the field was emerging. And once you are second rank it is pretty hard to attract folk from the first, particularly so in this field as Harvard can’t wave its cheque book and pull folk from MIT or Stanford.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:21 am
And somehow Matt finds a way to remind us that he went to Harvard.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:21 am
How did you not giggle every time you heard the term “TF?”
Get it, because it’s short for titty-fucking.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
In response to Andrew Fly’s question:
I don’t know about Harvard, but at Yale, I would have had to take a lot more ‘hard science’ courses (physics, chemistry, biology) to get a BS in Mathematics, so I got a BA instead.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 am
Harvard grad here. I think it’s lame that Burner is advertising her econ credentials because she took five undergrad courses. Suddenly that makes her Marty Feldstein??
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:40 am
Which does Harvard have: “discussion” or “recitation” sections?
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
Wait — isn’t it electorally worse for Burner to have any degrees from Harvard? Wouldn’t such make her un-American and pointy-headed and sophisticated and elitist?
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
The story is right. Silly, but right. The following is NOT the same as a joint concentration / double major:
‘She does have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, the university said. And her academic transcripts show she took five economics courses, enough to earn an emphasis in economics within her computer science degree…. “What I have is a degree in computer science with a special field in economics,” she said. “All along we’ve been trying to be very, very clear.”‘
Again, it’s a silly story. But hardly an “absurd hit,” the facts are clearly laid out in the story and Matt is only trying to confuse them by bringing up Harvard lingo.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Matt, does Harvard not give B.S.’s? It weird that it’s a B.A. in computer science. Do they count it as a social science?
I went to Caltech, which only issues B.S.es for undergrads. You can (disclaimer: at least in my day [1991-1996] you could) actually major in Literature or History, in which case you get a Bachelor of Science in Literature or a Bachelor of Science in History. Of course, like all Caltech undergrads, you would have to take the core classes, which in my day consisted of 2 years of math, 2 years of physics, a year of chemistry, and some assorted science electives.
To my knowledge nobody actually entered Caltech intending to become a Lit major; it was always either a double major with something else, or the student in question had burnt out on science but decided to stick around instead of transferring.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
20: Harvard has “sections”. I don’t think they’re ever called “discussion sections” or “recitation sections”.
5: Harvard offers B.S.es only in “engineering sciences”, which encompasses electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, and mechanical engineering; I don’t know if it’s possible to do computer science within “electrical engineering”. Only B.A.s in math, physics, chemistry, and so on. (Likewise, I think MIT offers only B.S.es, even in arts and literature.)
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Put me down with #19 above. I like Darcy Burner, but really, who gives a fuck what someone did in college. It’s like awarding Olympic medals to people based on their training routine.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I went to Leland Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto to get my Associate Masters (AM) in Philosophy. At one point a cop stopped me on my long way home to Canada at xmas and wondered how I got a student visa to go to a junior college.
He didn’t believe that Leland Stanford Junior University is the long form for “Stanford University” and the Associate Masters wasn’t some two-year accounting certificate, but the peculiar term Stanford has for a Masters degree.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Matt, your TF’s name was Waheed. He’s now an asst. prof. at Wharton as part of a good, if small, group of ethicists there.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
PHB: you’re an idiot. Harvard’s DEAS is small but well-regarded. There is no fundamental fact of the matter about what computer science is a branch of. And Course 6 is EECS, not just computer science.
I was always under the impression that it was appropriate to refer to one’s joint concentration degree as an “A.B. in X & Y” where X was primary and Y was secondary.
In any event, Dave Reichert reads at a third-grade level and drools tobacco on himself when speaking, so bickering about Darcy Burner’s qualifications is a bit rich.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“Matt, does Harvard not give B.S.’s? It weird that it’s a B.A. in computer science.”
Not that strange, given Harvard’s close links to Cambridge (U.K): it was set up by an alumnus of Emmanuel College. Cambridge only gives out B.A.’s at the undergraduate level (save for law, medicine, and veterinary undergrad degrees). So if you do physics or engineering, you still get a B.A. I imagine Harvard’s just continued doing something similar, given that its founding almost predates modern science.
After all, the institution *predates* modern science.
“But engineering degrees are considerably harder than the typical science degree at most schools because the students are required to know both the theory and the practice rather than just theory.”
Meh. Not convinced on this. Conceptually most engineering is easier than, say, experimental physics. I did physics and switched to engineering and frankly, both were f**king awful grinds. By comparison, B-school was like a holiday, even though I was holding down a full-time job at the same time.
“Unfortunately Harvard is not one of the better schools for engineering. Their racist and anti-semitic hiring practices meant that they simply never hired the best faculty in the 50s and 60s when the field was emerging. And once you are second rank it is pretty hard to attract folk from the first, particularly so in this field as Harvard can’t wave its cheque book and pull folk from MIT or Stanford.”
I don’t really buy this, because Stanford didn’t become a leading research university until post-WWII, plus I think that anti-Semitism would have had more lasting impact on the basic sciences than the applied sciences and technology. Although Stanford is about the only institution that could compete with Harvard in the “write a big check to get talent” stakes. But I can’t see why it couldn’t pull whatever talent it wanted from Carnegie Mellon or U.Illinois or the U.California, or outbid any of the European institutions.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
That she chose not to give a tediously detailed description of the academic procedures of her undergraduate institution is just common sense.
—————————–
No, she chose to claim she had an economics degree that not even the “Harvard system” would allow under the most liberal interpretation:
“I loved economics so much that I got a degree in it from Harvard”
The did this because she was attempting to convey expertise to an audience acutely focused on economic issues. When the audience hears “economics degree,” they think economics degree . . . not 5 classes. That’s a deliberate distortion.
No company would accept this distortion in a resume.
And the defense was no better:
“Kaushik said she claimed to have an economics degree at the debates because saying she had an emphasis within her computer-science degree “doesn’t exactly flow off the tongue.”
“Burner said explaining that her economics emphasis wasn’t technically a degree ‘takes a whole lot of words’ and because of limited time, “every word … mattered.”
Doesn’t flow off the tongue . . . limited time . . . every word mattered? What about, “I have a Computer Science degree,” or “I have a Computer Science degree with a concentration in economics.”
The spin is pretty lame. If this had been Palin – and I’m no Palin fan – the criticism would have been relentless.
The hypocrisy is too much.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Harvard may be old and fancy, but politics is old and rough. If takes you so long to untangle your “degree in economics,” you probably shouldn’t say a lot about it unless you’re going to be crystal clear. You’re not in the dorm–er, house–anymore.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Are you kidding? This happens all the time. Every company accepts this. Maybe you’ve worked at Semantics/Pedantic Inc. for your career, but in the real world, this how how it is. In most universities you can get an undergraduate major taking about 5 or 6 classes in that field. It’s not a grad degree.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
In most universities you can get an undergraduate major taking about 5 or 6 classes in that field.
Is that really true? I doubled, and I think it was 9-10 classes per major. Add in the general pre-requisites, and it added up to something of a mistake; I missed out on too many electives.
It sounds like what she got was something akin to a minor, not a second major. But even so, isn’t a minor still called “a minor degree?” I mean, isn’t the hair being split really fine here?
This just doesn’t seem like there’s really much there there.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
In most universities you can get an undergraduate major taking about 5 or 6 classes in that field.
———————–
Show us using requirements for a CS degree at Harvard.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Politics, politics… what people are capable of doing in thy name!
Lots of luck to Ms Burner. May she succeed in her endeavour.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Darcy Burner bragged about her degree in economics during a recent debate.
I recently read about her in a “voters’ guide” provided by my local newspaper. The information, presumably made available by her, indicated Harvard degrees in Computer Science and Economics. I was impressed that someone could come away from a Harvard undergraduate education with two degrees.
It develops that Ms. Burner does not have an Economics degree. She spent a campaign two years ago plus another this year touting that information. Harvard graduates do not have a reputation for stupidity. Claiming that you don’t understand the confusion is either 1) being incredibly stupid yourself–something that doesn’t compute with a Harvard education, or 2) a presumption that your public audience is stupid. I think it the latter.
If Ms. Burner had submitted this information on a resume in private industry to have it later proved wrong, she would be fired.
Perhaps lying is a strong word, but it appears quite certain that she’s not telling the truth.
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I’m the Harvard grad who wrote comment #19. Here is the undergrad computer science requirements as of 2008. I don’t see anything about a special field in economics, though maybe things have changed since Ms. Burner was in school. I majored (oops, concentrated) in something else, so I’m not familiar with the CS department.
I should add that in addition to taking Harvard econ classes as an undergrad, I also was a teaching fellow for Harvard undergrad econ classes as a grad student. The Harvard undergrad econ curriculum is by and large not extremely rigorous (compared to, say, MIT, or Oxford) and five classes hardly makes you an expert on how to create jobs or defeat inflation. I would be more impressed if Ms. Burner had traded bonds on Wall Street or started a company.
I’m reading her wikipedia page now. I see that she worked at Microsoft for many years. I don’t understand how she got to be the nominee (twice) for the US House race despite having no other political experience, and not having superstar accomplishments from another professional field. Good for her, I guess.
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Oh Noes!!! Michigan didn’t have Minors either, but they did have a “Cognate” requirement, which was several upper level courses in one other dept pre-approved as relating to your own Concentration (not Major). My resume says “Major” (Concentration) and “Minor” (Cognate).
Also I got an “A.B.”, but I say “B.A.” cuz no one knows what an A.B. is. guess I can’t run for Congress….
ridiculous.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Dave H and JimmyM are right and Matt is wrong. A special field is not a degree. Darcy’s coursework might have qualified at most as the equivalent of a minor in Economics at another university. To say she had a degree in Economics was misleading, and the Seattle Times article is relatively accurate even if the point seems fairly trivial. What Darcy should have said to avoid confusion is that she “studied Economics”.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I went to Harvard and my GPA was over 12.00 so that makes me at least 3 times as smart as those who got 4.0 GPAs at other colleges.
The definitive explanation has been posted over at Open Left by Dean Harry Lewis.
http://openleft.com/showComment.do?commentId=119754
November 5th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I would have to say that Darcy Burner should have made it more clear that she got a degree in Computer Science and Economics. It would have saved her from all of this criticism and harsh rumors.
Well, politicians just want to make themselves seem better than they really are afterall…
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