For Harvard Extension School, do you take the admissions requirement courses first?

[mednat]

For anyone interested, there is an edX Poetry Whitman course (free) you can take with the same instructor.  I'm working through it now to get my feet wet.  
HarvardX: AmPoX.3
Poetry in America: Whitman

I've taken grad courses (3) at HES but they are too old to use toward a degree.  They do fall off, however, if you don't need a degree, it doesn't matter.  In my case, I did think I was going to pursue a degree when I started.  The first courses I took were  Psychology and Statistics because my TESU degree was in Social Science and I thought I might go that direction. The classes were perfect in every aspect, but psychology as a career in the counseling/helping wasn't for me, so I let that go.  Later, I took a course in Biology because I worked my way through the pre-nursing/pre-med sciences and I strongly weighed my options for nursing/medicine - and also, the course was perfect - engaging, tough, interesting, a "dig deep" kind of thing.  I used my sciences as the prereqs for a nutrition master instead, pulling from my background and staying in my field.  

I didn't have the resources to pay cash- something you have to do if you're not an enrolled degree-seeking student.  For the poetry set, I do have the resources to pay cash, so I'm getting after it.  

Part 2, I wasn't able to leave my family for the full semester on campus requirement that is part of the psychology/biology degree tracks.  English is different because my cursory research shows the potential of doing the on campus courses over several learning weekends.  Weekends I can do. Nevermind that my kids are older now, it's just less logistics and cost to figure out.  Further, there are at least 3 here doing these courses, plus another 3 in my homeschooling facebook community, so I'll in a cohort with 6 other people.  The "go alone" factor would be somewhat mitigated by knowing my peeps will also be there.  Sounds fun to me actually.    

So, I think I can say that I'm going to do all 4-5 of these at $200 if only for the fact that it adds a teaching block for me (ENG teachers at the community college = insane demand) and I'm not ruling out the proseminar this spring because it is live online with 1 learning weekend.  (full price) and that's one of the degree requirements for this degree.  In other degrees, there are still barriers and a full semester courses - though I haven't looked through them all.

How demanding are the HES courses when you take them at the graduate level? The current plan is to finish a ALM in Management or Finance at HES. This semester I completed 41 credits (18 online at the CC, 8 through HBX CORe, and 15 CLEP) to finish off my associates. I got a full ride to an online bachelor's program at Western Carolina that I can easily finish by Spring 2019. The dilemma I'm running into is whether I should just finish my bachelors at WGU (not to be confused with Western Carolina), which could be done in 3-4 months, or go the traditional route and wait until next year to graduate. The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on WGU is my concern that I might not be ready for the rigor of HES. I'd also be leaving $7-8k in grant money on the table by not attending Western Carolina. Sorry for the rambling post. I'm just glad to be able to talk to someone who has actually attended HES.

I'm currently working on my ALM Information Systems Management and I've taken 7 courses so far....My answer to this is "it depends"...I wish I could be more helpful, but it really varies alot -- but expect to put in work.  This semester I've taken 4 classes at once and I almost went crazy with the amount of work due each week (I was studying on my honeymoon...) .  With that said most of the classes I've taken the graduate requirements aren't that different from undergrad (usually an extra paper, or assignment).

Let me know if you have any more specific questions.  Once you're enrolled there is a course review site that will show you previous students review of classes prior to taking them.  You can also drop in the first week...alot of students seem to sign up for extra classes and drop once they determine the workload..