"If you don't do anything else and you put all your energy into this course without other distractions such as football games, parties and concerts, it's total immersion--highly intensive," Davis says.
Orchard Professor of Landscape History John R. Stilgoe says teaching summer school has even been a benefit to his own career.
"One reason I have tenure is because I taught summer school and I had a chance to write every day," says Stilgoe, who has taught classes on visual studies at Harvard Summer School for 27 years.
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But he does not ignore the benefits to high school students who flock to Harvard over the summer.
"Summer school is the first real education for many of these people," Stilgoe says.