(I am writing this before reading other responses to avoid anchoring)
My experience (current joint CS/Math concentrator) has been that Harvard is much more flexible with requirements than say, MIT (I don’t know about the other colleges you named). There are only a handful of “core” courses (called “Geneds” that are typically very easy), a language requirement, and then 3 distributional classes (one must be Science, one must be Social Science, one must be Humanities), and then other than that… basically nothing besides your major’s requirement. I have felt very free to take what I want, and it is no problem to skip ahead to grad-level courses if you feel ready.
Compare this to MIT, where (going off of what my friends there say) there are a bunch of cores STEM requirements (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) in addition to even more humanities requirements than Harvard (apparently you have to take one a semester).
Overall, I have felt very academically unconstrained at Harvard, both in terms of not having to sit through boring requirements, and having great advanced classes available.
In my experience, Harvard has a considerably more active AI safety community than MIT’s MAIA.
(I am writing this before reading other responses to avoid anchoring)
My experience (current joint CS/Math concentrator) has been that Harvard is much more flexible with requirements than say, MIT (I don’t know about the other colleges you named). There are only a handful of “core” courses (called “Geneds” that are typically very easy), a language requirement, and then 3 distributional classes (one must be Science, one must be Social Science, one must be Humanities), and then other than that… basically nothing besides your major’s requirement. I have felt very free to take what I want, and it is no problem to skip ahead to grad-level courses if you feel ready.
Compare this to MIT, where (going off of what my friends there say) there are a bunch of cores STEM requirements (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.) in addition to even more humanities requirements than Harvard (apparently you have to take one a semester).
Overall, I have felt very academically unconstrained at Harvard, both in terms of not having to sit through boring requirements, and having great advanced classes available.
In my experience, Harvard has a considerably more active AI safety community than MIT’s MAIA.