An Overview on Harvard University

An Overview on Harvard University

Harvard was established in the year 1636, and it was named after John Harvard, its 1st benefactor from Charlestown. Based in Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts and the USA’s oldest institution in the field of higher education, Harvard was founded one hundred forty years before the USA was granted its Independence. It only started with one master and nine students, and has grown to a population of over twenty thousand degree candidates which include professional, graduate and undergraduate students. In addition to this, the Harvard Extension School has a student population of thirteen thousand. Harvard employs more than fourteen thousand people, including more than two thousand faculty members. In its affiliated teaching hospitals, there are seven thousand faculty appointments as well. Harvard has over three hundred sixty thousand alumni across the globe.

The mission of the University is to promote lasting knowledge and further new ideas. Part of its mission is also to create an educational environment that challenges outstanding scholars and students across the globe. The University has the passion to promote excellence in research, learning, and teaching, and to develop leaders in different disciplines to reach out to the world.  Harvard faculty is particularly engaged with research and teaching with the goal in pushing the limits of human knowledge.

For those who are interested in discovering the 21st century’s biggest issues, Harvard University offers an unrivalled student experience as well as a generous program regarding financial aid, with more than $160 million grants awarded to over 60% of its undergraduate students. It has 12 degree-granting Schools aside from the “Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,” providing a real global education.

Harvard College observes the purposes of the 1650 Charter which focus on education and advancement of youth in all aspects related to good literature, sciences and arts. In other words, the College creates knowledge, introduces that knowledge to its students, and enables its students to make the most of their opportunities in education.

With the purposes mentioned above, Harvard College encourages its students to observe respect to ideas as well as free expression of an individual, to rejoice in critical thought and in discovery, to further excellence through productive cooperation, and to be able to take responsibility for personal actions and the consequences of such actions.

The College also seeks to know distinctly as well as eliminate restraints on the full participation of students, so that as individuals the students will be able to explore their interests and capabilities as well as reach their full human and intellectual potential. This further supports the idea that Harvard education gives the students the freedom to lead, to create, to explore, and to challenge.

The kind of support the College offers to its students serves as their foundation upon which habits of lasting learning and self-reliance are built. Harvard students are especially expected that, through the collegiality and scholarship Harvard fosters in them, they will be able to lead their future lives in advancing knowledge, promoting understanding, and serving society.