I hear a lot of people talking about how they or their kid got into a state school and are doing Honors. I am not planning to do Honors. Aside from the in-school benefits (housing, priority registration, etc.), does Honors really help you significantly in finding a job in industry? I have 4-year full ride scholarship in which I will be carrying 15-16 unit loads each semester in aerospace engineering just to complete the requirements for the basic degree, and that’s with 22 transfer credits. I have to keep a 3.5 GPA to hold the scholarship. In order to not overload myself, I am thinking to just do that and clubs and stuff for other involvement. I am worried now that I will not be as competitive of a job applicant if companies want Honors, but I don’t see how I could handle the extra units and still keep my scholarship. Anybody have experience with this? Thanks for any replies.
I’m not sure if it’s a must or how much it will help in the job field. In materialistic retrospect, it does show that you graduated with Honors on your transcript. But honestly, it’s not a big deal to care about that. The whole point about the Honors experience is taking challenging courses and learning new things, participating in special research, and interacting with other Honors students. You’ll already be taking on a lot plus you want to be involved with clubs. If you don’t feel you can handle the extra work, then don’t apply.
I personally applied for the honors program at my state school. Not sure if I’ll get it, but hey at least I tried. I have a scholarship where I’d have to maintain a 3.0 (not as bad as you) but I was pretty confident that I can handle the work.
Actually, being in the honors program isn’t what gets you Latin honors on your transcript - they are two separate things. Latin honors is usually simply about your GPA. There’s a threshold you have to pass for each level. For example, at my undergrad college a 3.4-3.6 got you cum laude; a 3.6-3.8 got you magna cum laude and a 3.8 or higher was summa cum laude. It didn’t matter whether you were in the college honors program or not. There might be a few colleges that limit their Latin honors to only their honors college graduates, but I doubt it. (Also, I’m not convinced that Latin honors are a big deal anyway - since they are based on your GPA, employers who care about your GPA - and most of them don’t - would just ask for your GPA instead. Most employers don’t look at your transcript anyway.)
The honors program, I think, is usually good for students who want a well-rounded liberal arts education and/or would thrive in a small-to-medium atmosphere, but have to go to a large public university for some reason and/or for students who want both the experience of a large public university but also the tight-knit, enhanced academic curriculum of an honors college. However, the vast majority of students are (by definition) NOT in the honors college and find employment and have fulfilling careers. So if you don’t want to do the college honors program, don’t do it.
@juillet Thanks for the reply, I will ask and see if the school does Latin honors that way. Not trying to diss liberal arts or anything, but the classes do seem to be in a lot of stuff I really am not interested in. I’m going into aerospace engineering. I was just worried because a lot of people on here really make a big deal out of it, like if they can’t get into or pay for an Ivy or other highly ranked school, then State U with Honors is the next best thing. Granted that CC is mostly filled with very high achieving people that could probably carry 18-19 credits each semester and sail through college.
At the University of Minnesota, students graduating through the Honors program are guaranteed by the school to graduate summa cum laude - although that seems a little fishy to me. There must be some exceptions for students who fail out of their classes.
@albert69 - There’s nothing wrong with not being super interested in humanities and social science classes (I assume that’s what you mean by “liberal arts”, since math and physics are part of the liberal arts and sciences as well). In that case I would say definitely steer clear of honors programs, because they tend to be heavy in humanities and social sciences classes for some reason.
CC is a strange and interesting and wonderful place - but I would say not a very good representative cross-section of the college-going population in the United States 
The vast majority of students do not do an honors program and do just fine. (Also, I think a lot of CC students think they could carry 18-19 credits at a top-ranked honors programs and sail through, but the reality is quite different from the fantasy).
For most honors programs, I’m pretty sure you have to maintain a certain GPA minimum to stay in the program. If you don’t maintain that, you’re out.
OP:
I would advocate simply because of the priority enrollment, you underestimate the class enrollment system, especially for incoming freshmen; it’s hell trying to get the right classes, since freshmen basically get the last scraps.
However, I know most honors programs require honors units, which are mandatory for all honors students, which means you have the take honors classes. Aside from being more rigorous, you might find yourself in classes with some unfavorable personalities (in my school, some of the honor students I met thought they were god’s gift to the world).
Up to you in the end, though.
@NotYetEngineer Thanks for the input, the priority enrollment is the one thing that is tempting me, but if I can’t handle the course load, it makes it a moot point. I would have to take Honors classes to be in an Honors program at the college (there are have several different tracks) and I think the minimum number of extra units is 12. Assuming each of the classes are 3 units, that would put me up to AT LEAST 18 units in 4 semesters, which I can’t see myself realistically handling with a 3.5+ GPA.
The biggest advantage to the honors programs at many (but not all - this requires checking school by school) is the priority registration. At an impacted/overcrowded public university, and even more importantly in a popular major, this allows you to select the classes you want at the times you want them without having to worry about getting on a waiting list when the class fills up before your registration slot has even opened.
A second benefit at many (not all) is better housing, albeit with the other “honors” students (which some might see as a disadvantage). Being in the best housing can be very nice, and the “honors” students presumably would be more quiet and studious, although some might prefer to be housed with all of the “regular” freshmen.
The third benefit is supposedly access to the honors courses and professors, which may or may not be attractive to you. At some universities this could indeed mean a little more work. At others, it could mean the same class that everyone else has to take, but in a smaller group with possibly better teaching. This, again, should be researched at each particular school.
If you are considering a university that is not overly impacted in your major, and without any special housing over any other student, etc., then the honors program might not be particularly worth it to you.
Here’s what Wichita State University’s website says about Honors benefits: [my comments in brackets]
Smaller class sizes and closer contact with faculty (average student-to-faculty ratio in Honors courses is 8:1) [They are still extra classes for the most part]
A sense of community with other honors students [I can make friends with lots of people]
Priority enrollment for classes [Yes, want this!]
Access to scholarships, travel, internships, and community service experiences [I want technical internships, does this mean I would get more access to those?]
Undergraduate research opportunities to prepare for graduate or professional school and demands of a global society [Sounds cool]
I know, some of this I need to ask the school.
@albert69 - those are significant benefits. Have you visited the college? Might be worth it to inquire in person about the specifics of the program, what your obligations would be, and the benefits vs the burdens (especially, impact on grades) of this honors program. But sounds hard to pass up.
@prospect1 We are visiting in March. I will ask about it.
I was in an honors program at a small liberal arts college - I thought it was pretty pointless at a small LAC. They advertised all of these things as part of the program, too.
The truth is - find out if those smaller classes are only accessible to honors students or if anyone can take them. At my undergrad anyone could take the small honors classes, so it didn’t matter if you were in the program. Not only that, but your upper-level classes are likely to be small anyway.
I had better housing. The quality of the housing was really overall better - fewer women sharing a bathroom (10 vs 30), air conditioning, and better quality rooms (and perhaps slightly larger). But the honors housing was mixed with upperclassmen and there were fewer freshmen in the honors hall (only one small floor of freshman. Thus, the hall was overall quieter and had fewer social events. I really did not want to be in the honors hall, lol, and I got the sense that the non-honors halls were “more fun.” They threw more parties and socials, for sure, and there were more first-year students to connect with. (I was…quite the partier in undergrad, so that was appealing to me. Someone who wants a quieter environment might find that appealing - and the honors kids weren’t really any different from the non-honors kids; it’s just that there were fewer of us!)
Priority enrollment for classes may or may not be useful to you, depending on the size of your major and the kinds of classes you want to take. I would say that alone is not a good reason to do an honors program. Usually the thing it will affect is the time you take the classes (aka, you can take the 12 noon section instead of the 8 am section). There might be a few very popular classes that everyone wants but the honors kids get priority for. By the time you are a junior you will probably have priority enrollment for the classes that are important to you. You could also do what the rest of us do and sit up at your computer at midnight on the registration date :disagree: that was actually kind of fun, because everyone was doing it and we would shout down the hall at each other.
And as for the research opportunities - you definitely don’t need to be in an honors program to do that. All you need to do is connect with a professor that will allow you to assist in their lab. Honors students may have a formal program that sets them up with these connections, but any sufficiently motivated undergrad can do it.
I’m not saying don’t do it - like I said, I was in one. And I think they can be very enriching experiences and programs for students (I took some classes I otherwise wouldn’t, and I enjoyed them). But don’t feel like you HAVE to in order to have a good academic experience.
@juillet Thanks for the perspective of your experience. Mine doesn’t say that Honors students actually get better housing, just that they have a “sense of community” which I suppose you can get just from being in classes together. Aerospace is a rather star field at the college, and though it still doesn’t outrank humanities degrees in popularity, so the worry about not getting the classes I need is there. WSU is a regular public university in Kansas. There are about 8,000-10,000 undergrads at the college.
No, it does not. What does help is getting a good GPA, taking part in student-run engineering activities (to a lesser extent), and internships. Do these and nobody will care if there is an honors stamp on your degree. Wichita offers a coop program, too. While I don’t know the specifics of that program, in general students in these spend a semester or two working in industry. It takes longer to graduate, but they get paid (well paid, actually) while doing their coop and if they are any good they will be swamped with job offers when they graduate. If you want to bolster your future, that’s what you should do.
Priority enrollment is a big benefit for most kids and usually a reason to recommend honors. But not for you. Priority enrollment is useful to get into general electives, or to get a preferred time for classes in large majors such as Econ or Psych. But look at http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=aero_eng&p=/xaeundergradprog/ Only 15 of the 135 credits you need to graduate are general electives. Its up to you to decide if honors is worth it for priority selection of those 15 units. The rest are required classes. Either standard Calculus & Physics classes for which there are going to be enough seats for anyone who wants them, or major-related classes like “Fundamentals of Atmospheric Flight” or “Aerospace Propulsion I”. Your college knows how many Aeronautical engineers it has, it makes enough seats available. There aren’t a lot of kids taking these classes (63 bachelor degrees in Aeronautical Engineering awarded in 2014) so there is just going to be one class available (unlike majors with more students that have multiple classes to choose from). They’ll have a seat for you in all the engineering classes you want 
In engineering that is a huge bar.
@mikemac - You point out a very important thing for some scholarship recipients to understand. Many of these institutional merit scholarships carry a gpa requirement. While the gpa requirement is certainly doable for most good students, engineering is a different animal. At many schools, a 3.5 gpa is achievable only by the very top engineering students. I don’t know whether this is the case at Wichita, but it is very much the case at some engineering programs.
It seems to me that the scholarship gpa criteria should be lower for engineering at many colleges…or perhaps somehow tied to the median gpa of the student’s major at the college.
Like you, my S was offered to join the honors college. Also, like you, he was on a full ride (NROTC) and merit scholarships which required keeping a 3.2 gpa . S wasn’t an engineering major but
NROTC requires extra classes every semester (including some of the same classes as freshmen/soph. in engineering). He chose to skip the Honors Program. He wasn’t interested in the extracurricular stuff. Never regretted it. Had a great four years. Has cum laude on his diploma.
Aerospace is tough. Don’t make it tougher on yourself.
I saw on a different thread the OP wrote
I’m not going to say don’t do it, but understand the risk you are shouldering if you choose this school. I strongly suggest you call the engineering dept and talk to an advisor. They have access to the cumulative GPAs of current students. Ask how many aerospace engineers have a 3.5 or better as frosh, as sophomores, etc. Here is a link http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=engadvising&p=/stepsintheadvisingprocess/ Note that it might take some persistence on your part to find the right person, and thats a good thing; it will give you a realistic feeling of what it takes to navigate the bureaucracy at a large public. And while you’re on the phone, ask them how many kids they accept as frosh in aerospace. 63 got degrees last year; see how many started and reflect about what that says about the odds of even sticking in the major.
I’m not trying to discourage you and predict failure, but I DO want you to know how difficult the task you have placed in front of yourself is. If you are a 3.4 student your 1st 2 years at a college you can afford in your state, you have a chance to continue to improve your GPA. That, along with some internship/coop jobs along the way, will make you a great job candidate when you graduate. But a 3.4 at Wichita and you’re out of the game.
Thank you for all the replies! Yes, I know that a 3.5 in engineering is dauntingly tough; that is why I am leaning toward not doing Honors or any other extra courses. I have taken (and aced) Calc I & Calc II at my community college as a dual credit student, and will be coming in with those courses, 2 gen eds, and the 2nd English class (plus my SAT scores place me out of the first one.) I am also taking Matlab, not because it is a required course but because it seems that most engineering students are expected to know it. With the remaining courses on the required course list, it divides to 15 units per semester with 2 left over, so I’ll either be taking 2 16 unit semesters and 6 15 unit semesters or 7 15 unit semesters and 1 17 unit semester. That will be hard enough to get a 3.5 without adding Honors classes.
@mikemac I get what you’re saying and I will try to find that info. The problem with my state schools is that there is only one (not the in-town flagship) that has aerospace, and I don’t think the program is as strong as Wichita’s. Plus their scholarship is not as good. I also think the employment opportunities for AE students in Wichita are much higher. I know it’s very hard what I’m asking myself to do, but I am prepared to work my ass off. I’m not going into engineering expecting it to be easy. If I wanted that I would have majored in history. I’ll be living on campus, so I won’t have to commute or cook my own meals. If I need help, I will go for tutoring and camp out at my teachers’ office hours. Somebody must be able to do it. Why not me?