Honors Program @ Univ. of Cincinnati

taxguy
Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:14:34 +0000

Dadavajr asks the following questions which I will attempt to answer under each question since I have a daughter in both DAAP and the honors program:

1) Considering how demanding DAAP is, how overwhelming will the additional commitment of Honors be?

Response: DAAP is VERY overwhelming, especially in the first few years. Make no mistake about it. It will take a LOT of sleepless nights of work.I don’t care how smart or hard-working your son is, it will be a very challenging curriculum.

First, their are several levels of “honors.” First there are low honors which requires I think 24 credits of honors work, of which up to 6 credits can be give for APs and other prior courses taken in colleges. This leaves only 18 credits left if you come in with at least 6 AP credits. This can be one full year of english with honors and one full year of honors art history,which should meet the requirement. If your son doesnt’ take honors english, he will have to fit these honors courses in upperclass years ,which are a bit more demanding. Generally honors courses require an extra project or an extra paper.
Overall, low honors isn’t that hard to do. However, it is a bit more demanding and becomes tough when you consider that DAAP is very demanding to begin with.

Let me note there are a lot of funky rules for the community service,which you should read about. For example, a certain amount of community service has to be undertaken away from the campus. Why? I have no idea. However, it can be undertaken at your son’s home town. For example, my daughter did some graphic design work for her local synagogue,which qualified for a full year of community service. Last year,she delivered Christmas presents for the poor in her home community of Maryland. However, Univeristy of Cincinnnati has plenty of community service options if your son wants to do his service near the university.

There are other requirements too. For example, my daughter used to get a few hours of community service for the marching band to attend off school functions such as parades and for visits to Ohio high schools for recruiting concerts. This was eliminated since the community service folks felt ( and I am not making this up) that “community service should not be for things that kids would normally enjoy.”

The second type of honors is regular honors. Here you need to take ( I think) 35 credits of honors, some of which are in specially designated courses unrelated to your son’s major. This is more for kids that are very intellectually curious about areas outside their major. My problem with this is that it forces kids to take some more unrelated courses outside their major. This can be both good and bad depending on the goals of the kid.

Finally there is high honors,which is the same as “regular honors” except the kid must graduate with a 3.7 or better overall GPA,which is no easy task for DAAP.

2) What overlaps do you see between the Honors requirements and the community service required of Cincinnatus scholars?

Response: I am not sure what you mean by “overlap” or what should be overlapping. The community service applies to both honors and Cincinnatus, I think. Remember that your son must not only fit in all the DAAP work but must do 30 hours of community service too during the year for Cincinnatus and I think honors too, but , if honors requires community service, the service will meet both the Cincinnatus and Honors reqirement. In that regard, it would overlap.

Thus,doing both honors and community service is doable,but it takes dedication. My daughter did both DAAP and community service and also participated in both marching band and concert band. Thus, it is doable,but my daughter is a workaholic and is extremely good at time management.

I also want to note that the community service MUST be undertaken while the kid is in school. It will not be accepted in the summer of the freshmen year ,for example ,where no courses are being taken. It is a stupid rule, in my opinion.

3) First year students’ requirements for Honors - We’ve read about Honors 101 and the two English requirements. What are they like in terms of study, projects, reading, and extracurricular involvement?

Response; I can’t answer this one since my daughter didn’t take honors english nor do I remember her taking honors 101.

Frankly, most kids either don’t take honors at DAAP or drop out of it in their junior year. The reason is that each DAAP major is very structured. Getting into your required courses isn’t a problem. Taking on additional, onerous requirements just to get first pick of courses isn’t a problem for DAAP kids. However, if you have a kid that really wants that extra broad-based, intellectual stimulation, go for it.