Engineering with honors college

aeromom
Sat, 01 Feb 2014 04:16:13 +0000

Ok, I have mentioned this before in other threads, but I’ll mention it again. There are two types of “honors” designation at UA. (actually, there are many others, but I’ll focus on just these two for now) One designation is earned through the Honors College, and one designation can be earned through each engineering department. So, for example, one can ‘easily’ complete the Honors College requirements of 18 credit hours in honors classes, true. But, to earn an honors designation in one’s engineering MAJOR is quite a different story.

Let’s look at Aero-space Eng’g, as an example. There is a separate honors program just for this major, and this is not an automatic thing based on your GPA and test scores. You have to apply for this program: About – Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics | The University of Alabama. A student will find that these honors courses are considerably more challenging than merely taking honors seminars and lower division honors courses such as Honors Introductory Chem, Honors Physics, Honors Calc, Honors MicroEcon, etc.

A quick look at each eng’g department at UA yields a similar requirement to apply to the departmental honors program. There is a link for each eng’g department’s honors program on each department’s website. IMO, the aero- and the chem-/bio- eng’g honors programs appear to be the most challenging and include quite stringent requirements which include a bucket-load of level 400 and 500 courses.

Better yet, here is a summary link to all DEPARTMENTAL Honors programs at UA, including all 7 eng’g disciplines + 8 other departments across campus: http://honors.ua.edu/programs/campus-programs/.

It is one thing to be a member of the Honors College throughout your time there and satisfy the Honors College requirements. It is another thing altogether to receive a Departmental Honors Certificate at graduation. I’d be interested in hearing from any students or families of students who are choosing to complete their Departmental Honors Certificate.