“The whole move is just so difficult,” said Gotsman. “I don’t feel that the housing office was very helpful.”

However, Gotsman notes that this may be because the Harvard housing office is more accustomed to find professors housing in Cambridge.

“I wanted to live in Brookline because of the Jewish community there,” he said.

Julia also had to arrange for his family’s housing by himself.

“Housing was quite difficult to arrange as we decided to live in Brookline for the schools and because it is close to BU, where my wife works,” said Julia.

Being Taught to Teach

Teaching at Harvard for the first time, however, presents its own challenges.

CUNY, where Johnson teaches, has only lectures and seminars, and he said he looks forward discussion sections--he plans to lead some himself.

For Julia, the teaching format surprised him.

“I’m not used to the [Physics Department’s] Q-and-A service and having the lectures videotaped,” he said. “The way of teaching here is rich but strange.”

And Gotsman says that he feels the pressure of having to prepare two lectures per week instead of one, which is customary for Israeli universities.

Despite these difficulties, however, most visiting professors love their experience here.

“You can be a much more creative teacher because you know that the resources will be there,” Johnson said, citing the example of government documents. “There are things that Harvard can offer students that other schools for financial reasons cannot.”

“Classes here are smaller, so there is more individual attention for each student,” said Julia. “I was very impressed by the level of graduate students—I didn’t expect them to be so sophisticated.”

—Staff writer Ella A. Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Risheng Xu can be reached at xu4@fas.harvard.edu.