Harvard Extension School

[cookderosa]

I attended the extension school about a decade ago. I had some family issues that caused me to have to move away from Boston and I never completed my degree through them. I ended up finishing my degree through Excelsior. Classes taken at the extension school are leagues above anything you will encounter at WGU or TESC. The difference between the college and the extension school is the extension school has a limited offering of courses. You will not have access to all the star professors of Harvard. However you will have access to some great ones. Some classes are identical to the college ones. I took one that if you missed a class the professor could arrange for you to sit in the class at the college, because the lecture was identical. Now some courses at the extension school are not by Harvard professors. Some are from professors from other colleges. My favorite college courses were actually taught by a professor that headed the history department at Boston College. He enjoyed teaching at the extension school specifically to reach beyond the elite and teach adults who truly wanted to learn. Classes are tough and I was not truly prepared at 20 for the level of work, I so wish I could go back now though. I had one class that I ended up deciding not to take because it required around 20 books. You almost never read textbooks, at least in history classes, you read books written by current scholars often Harvard professors.

One thing I must tell you is Harvard Extension does not offer second bachelor's. At this stage you can take courses for enjoyment for credit or non credit, or you can enroll in a master's program. You will have to attend some courses in person. They do offer a January and a summer session. I suggest taking a course you are interested in and see how you like it. You have to take and pass classes before you can even apply anyway. Courses are open enrollment but getting admitted is harder.

Emphasis mine. This is true, and I'll be frank, it scares the crap out of me! Talk about being accountable for the work. In my first class, our professor LITERALLY was the author of the writing policy book for Harvard. Gulp. By the middle of the semester, I was quite freaked out because I hadn't done a lot of undergrad academic-styled writing (about 12 short papers to be exact). Like many here, I tested out a lot, so I felt like a kindergartener in high school! Psych uses APA style, and I recall being given good resources here and found OWL (still one of my fav websites).

While I can't speak to the other professors, I will say that in MY experience, none have EVER been eager to hit you with red marks- in other words, they want you to be successful. I remember sending the TA a note because I had a section of my final paper (due the next morning) and I couldn't for the LIFE OF ME figure out if reference needed a period or a semi-colon or whatever it was. His reply was "don't worry about it, it's about content and overall correctness." So, after that day, I do my best to write in the style of the class (some use Chicago style) and be generally correct, but I seriously don't stress about it anymore. No one has EVER dinged me on periods vs commas in reference sections or date after name/before name, in parentheses.... yet. And don't read that as apathy, I definitely try and do it right, I just have never been knocked points for making style errors (which I'm SURE I've made a zillion of).