Harvard Extension quality of classes question

[rpmranger]

I have done several towards the creative writing and literature program. The pro seminar and creative writing focused courses were all very intensive with scheduled 2 hour zoom meetings every week plus additional personally scheduled one on one meetings with the professor 3 times a term  and some additional group sessions if necessary. Those classes also had weekly reflective exercises in addition to your required writing samples, which had deadlines that varied per student for workshop purposes. I tried to do the Poetry for America courses for literature credit, but did not like either of the 2 I signed up for....those had minimal required sessions, but a lot of the assignments were just not enjoyable. I took the Philosophy of Superheroes for credit for one of my literature requirements and loved it.  Most of the material for it is available free through coursera, but the for credit version includes a weekly 1 hour discussion session with a graduate assistant lead and 3 other sessions with the actual professor that are optional, but less discussion and you submit your questions beforehand....the lectures are the same prerecorded ones on coursera. All of the writing assignments for the course get turned in once as a draft and then as a final paper incorporating feedback from the draft. It includes both analysis of stories (in this course, it's analysis of movies, tv shows, and radioplays) and creative writing with assigned parameters (you have to create a superhero with powers you are assigned the first week and then compose an origin story and then later a story incorporating philosophical concepts or dilemma that were discussed). The course has both undergraduate and graduate students, with more criteria for graduate writing assignments. The discussions in my group were amazing and it's probably my favorite course I've ever taken....and I'm not really a person into superhero or that whole genre. Honestly,  if every class I took was like this one, I would have finished school a long time ago.
And I also want to stress how strict all of the HE courses are with deadlines. Unless you get approval beforehand or have a verifiable emergency,  you likely will get zero credit for anything not turned in on time. And the courses that had draft assignments would not allow submission of the final paper if there was no draft grade.

Thanks for the info, 

Did you have to take one of the EXPO writing courses, or did you pass the writing exam to avoid it? If so which EXPO did you take and how was it? Also how difficult is the writing exam? Is it higher standards than an ENG comp I/II course?