Need an UL English course? Harvard has one cheap!

[cookderosa]

I am trying to gather 18 graduate credits in English in order to teach at the Community College level.  If I could figure out the funding, the Masters in English through HES looks awesome!  However, these classes are a great first step and very affordable!

If you complete all 5 of these courses, you could finish an ALM in English for 7-10k. The HES Grant gives you half all of courses and a free course during the summer. You'd only have 7 courses left. If you took two summers to finish, you'd only have to pay for 5 courses at half price. There is a thesis component to this ALM. I'm not sure what that process looks like. There's also an American Literature and Culture grad certificate that these courses count towards. In order to get it, you have to take two of these courses and two social science courses.

So these poetry courses should take about 5-7 hours per week? You just have a weekly quiz, discussion, then two papers, and a final? How was the paper? Was it a research paper or a personal reflection?

I don't understand the grant, so can you help me understand where that would cut these costs? This is just spit-ballin, not sure it's 100% accurate

5 English Poetry courses @ $200 (assuming the 5th is offered) $1000
Proseminar (spring 19 online live w/1 weekend) $2700 + travel
Gen elective 1 *summer online w/1 weekend $2700 + travel
Gen elective 2 online $2700
English seminar online $2700
Crafting Thesis online $2700
Thesis 1 $2700
Thesis 2 $2700

[alexf.1990]

I am trying to gather 18 graduate credits in English in order to teach at the Community College level.  If I could figure out the funding, the Masters in English through HES looks awesome!  However, these classes are a great first step and very affordable!

If you complete all 5 of these courses, you could finish an ALM in English for 7-10k. The HES Grant gives you half all of courses and a free course during the summer. You'd only have 7 courses left. If you took two summers to finish, you'd only have to pay for 5 courses at half price. There is a thesis component to this ALM. I'm not sure what that process looks like. There's also an American Literature and Culture grad certificate that these courses count towards. In order to get it, you have to take two of these courses and two social science courses.

So these poetry courses should take about 5-7 hours per week? You just have a weekly quiz, discussion, then two papers, and a final? How was the paper? Was it a research paper or a personal reflection?

I don't understand the grant, so can you help me understand where that would cut these costs?  This is just spit-ballin, not sure it's 100% accurate

5 English Poetry courses @ $200 (assuming the 5th is offered) $1000
Proseminar (spring 19 online live w/1 weekend) $2700 + travel
Gen elective 1 *summer online w/1 weekend $2700 + travel
Gen elective 2 online $2700
English seminar online $2700
Crafting Thesis online $2700
Thesis 1 $2700
Thesis 2 $2700

The HES Grant gives you half off all courses and a free course during the summer. You have to pay full price for the Proseminar because the grant doesn't kick in until you're admitted into the program. The cost would look something like this:

Proseminar:                        2750 + travel
Two free summer courses: 0
4 Courses at 50% off:         5500 + travel
5 Poetry Courses:               1000

Total:   9250 + travel expenses

Tuition increased by $50 for this upcoming year. It seems to increase by $50-100 per year, so I'd factor that into your costs.

[eriehiker]

I took the exam last night for the Poetry in the City class and scored a 93.75%. The exam is open book and untimed. It is all multiple choice - 32 questions. I thought that it was pretty easy, but I am an English teacher, so I am not a random sample.

[hsfamfun]

I spent about 10 hours per week, but I probably overdid some of the work.  I ended up with over 400 discussion board points and 280 was 100%.  However, this was the first academic class I have taken since I graduated with my Masters in 1995.  There isn't a weekly quiz, but you have to wade through hours of video and class materials, annotate poems, a project that is the beginning of the big paper and then the big paper.  It was an in depth poetry analysis, which I had never done before, but really enjoyed.  I would totally recommend the classes, I had a blast.

I was answering the question from alexf.1990 about how long the class took each week but my quote did not post.

[eriehiker]

This course is kind of fascinating and annoying all at the same time. The professor, Elisa New, is married to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. This means that Professor New is incredibly well connected. This actually impacts the course because she reads poetry with a who's who of centrist Democratic Party luminaries. She read poetry with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, President Bill Clinton, VP Joe Biden, etc. She also has clips with Greg Lemond, John Lithgow, Frank Gehry and many, many others. Sometimes this is really annoying. Elena Kagan was obviously not really into the poetry and was probably just chatting as a personal favor. Some of it is really fascinating. Bill Clinton really had some nice points about the poems and you could see why people really just loved the guy personally because you could probably talk to him about almost anything and it would be interesting. I think that the Frank Gehry interview was the best because he just has this great practical way about him. Almost none of these celebrity readings had anything to do with the course grade/assignments, so these can actually be kind of optional. Also, it is kind of annoying that Professor New is basically showing off her Harvard network of friends, although this is also fascinating just to see how wealthy, well-connected people interact with each other.

The other half of the videos are historical in nature and provide context to the various poets. These are very well-produced. Professor New visits a bunch of locations at which Walt Whitman lived and worked. I especially liked her visit to a print shop that worked the same way that Whitman's would have worked. You really get to see Whitman as a real person.

I did not get a chance to participate much in the office hours/discussion, etc. I want to do more of that in the next couple of classes because it would be really great to be able to make some connections.

I understand why some people really might not like this course, but for $200 it has a tremendous amount of value.

[alexf.1990]

This course is kind of fascinating and annoying all at the same time.  The professor, Elisa New, is married to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.  This means that Professor New is incredibly well connected.  This actually impacts the course because she reads poetry with a who's who of centrist Democratic Party luminaries.  She read poetry with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, President Bill Clinton, VP Joe Biden, etc.  She also has clips with Greg Lemond, John Lithgow, Frank Gehry and many, many others.  Sometimes this is really annoying.  Elena Kagan was obviously not really into the poetry and was probably just chatting as a personal favor.  Some of it is really fascinating.  Bill Clinton really had some nice points about the poems and you could see why people really just loved the guy personally because you could probably talk to him about almost anything and it would be interesting.  I think that the Frank Gehry interview was the best because he just has this great practical way about him.  Almost none of these celebrity readings had anything to do with the course grade/assignments, so these can actually be kind of optional.  Also, it is kind of annoying that Professor New is basically showing off her Harvard network of friends, although this is also fascinating just to see how wealthy, well-connected people interact with each other.

The other half of the videos are historical in nature and provide context to the various poets.  These are very well-produced.  Professor New visits a bunch of locations at which Walt Whitman lived and worked.  I especially liked her visit to a print shop that worked the same way that Whitman's would have worked.  You really get to see Whitman as a real person.

I did not get a chance to participate much in the office hours/discussion, etc.  I want to do more of that in the next couple of classes because it would be really great to be able to make some connections.

I understand why some people really might not like this course, but for $200 it has a tremendous amount of value.

Thanks for this review. I don't have any practical need for these courses, but I might take them in the off chance I want to teach English at a CC in a few years. It sounds like it would be good prep work for the HES finance program I'll be starting next year.

[eriehiker]

The lack of practical need should not stop anyone from taking a really cheap course.

[TexasTink]

If I'm reading this thread correctly, it sounds like this will likely come in as an upper level course? Even taken as the undergraduate option?

For those who have done these courses - would you say that it is feasible to do this and other online courses alongside? (like Study.com, etc...) I have about 15-20 hours per week that I can study. I don't want to sign up for it only to find it's all I can complete for a whole semester!

[BSLIONS]

I am just about to start my 20th year teaching MS/HS English/Social Sciences/Economics/Civics/Etc. at my current school.  I was also a preschool teacher and a live-in school counselor before that and I purchased those years in our state retirement system.  I will reach 30 years of service in four years and retire from my current position.  My wife will do the same thing.  We will then move out-of-state with our kids and I would like to teach college classes or dual enrollment classes or do curriculum work in my next incarnation.  There are currently five of these HES courses in English for $200 a piece.  That means that I can reach 18 graduate credits in English for $1000 via this program.  It is actually an incredible opportunity for me and I am going to take them all.

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I might also pick up a cheap plane ticket to Boston at some point and go to office hours at Harvard.  Haha.

I just went online to check the courses out. It looks like there are two available this fall and two more this spring. Has there been any word about the fifth course being offered again next summer?

The exit survey asked a question about taking another course with them. Said that it was a course to compliment this one so I’d assume it’s a new UL course.

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If I'm reading this thread correctly, it sounds like this will likely come in as an upper level course? Even taken as the undergraduate option?

For those who have done these courses - would you say that it is feasible to do this and other online courses alongside? (like Study.com, etc...) I have about 15-20 hours per week that I can study. I don't want to sign up for it only to find it's all I can complete for a whole semester!

TESU has it coming in as UL for me and I did undergraduate.


To me, this one was pretty time consuming. I took a Sophia course while doing this one and felt overwhelmed at times.

[davewill]

Convinced my daughter with the brand new BA English that she should really take these. She wants to teach at the HS level, and it make all kinds of sense to pick these up, whether to allow her to moonlight at the local CC or for salary reasons. She's signed up for the Mayflower to Whitman course.