What they won’t tell you in Harvard prospectus

At Harvard, the social class one falls into is keenly felt in certain circumstances as though there is an elite group within an already elite group of students enrolled here. The weight and impact of this stratification of course varies from school to school, but I can say that here at the Law School it is certainly felt. Further, the overall system gives preference to work experience rather than advanced study and therefore the JD programme at the Law School is the most prestigious one, followed by the LLM and SJD. Again, this is only my speculation and I am sure many of my classmates would heatedly disagree. Another downside is certainly the cost of attendance whereupon one year of study costs around $85,000 (approx. 2 125 000 Czech koruna). Without exaggeration, one could buy a house or at least a spacious flat in the Czech Republic for that amount of money. While there is financial aid available, the students are required to bear a large burden (usually via taking out loans) themselves. This in turn pushes them into private sector where they earn enough money to repay the loan within relatively short span of time even though many of them may have preferred going into the public sector. Crucially, one of the things that drive me utterly up the wall is the huge contrast between the school’s endowment of billions of dollars (which makes Harvard the richest university in the whole world) and, literally just outside its walls, there are dozens of homeless people, begging for spare change. Lastly, I would mention that while the professionalism, wealth of knowledge and expertise are keenly felt with the Harvard Law School faculty, some may be lacking in organisational skills which makes it hard for students to follow the lecturer’s thought process. Further, I have been to a number of lectures given by visiting professors/researches/practitioners/former students and others where the talk did not correspond with the expectation in terms of quality and organisation, and one cannot help but wonder whether the addition of ‘Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School’ to their resume had something to do with it. I have to add the caveat that most of the talks I have been to were brilliant but I do think the school could do a better job at selecting the speakers as the current practice often represents a waste in resources.

Putting these concerns aside, Harvard is a wonderful place where incredibly interesting and impressive individuals converge and I do believe that the people here represent the best thing about studying at Harvard and they are the backbone of what makes Harvard ‘Harvard’.