While working full-time, Nuscher has earned a masters degree from the GSE.

In the administrative offices, there are a lot of overqualified people with Ivy League degrees and graduate degrees, people who are attracted by "the cache of working at Harvard, the resources, access to Widener," Nuscher says. "It's a really good place to be affiliated with."

Many of Nuscher's co-workers have chosen to work at Harvard in order to support some other craft--poets, authors or researchers are the types of people attracted by the Harvard perks. Other students are pursuing degrees at the Extension School or other schools at Harvard.

Jessica H. Ludwig '99, for example, worked at the Radcliffe College Alumni Association after graduating. She had considered working for a publishing house, but "they were paying so little, with no benefits," she says.

Her reasons for applying for the Radcliffe job were varied.

"Initially I wanted to work there because I needed a break," she says. Ludwig also wanted to continue a research project, with access to the libraries and other Harvard resources. The reasonable hours also allowed her to work as an intern at the Boston Review, a political and literary magazine, three nights a week.

But she says "it definitely wasn't anything I wanted to do as a career."