<p>So… A lot of these are personal preference, but here are my pluses/minuses from being in it for three years and being a mentor, etc.</p>
<p>Plus: Good dorm, immediately make close friends during honors welcome week, get to take interesting honors seminars, graduate with honors distinction, get to put “honors program” on your resume which helps set you apart (a little, not a lot) during your first coop search, honors department is really helpful and funny, access to international and research scholarships, better chances at doing an independant research project if you want to, sometimes smaller classes (not always though, depends on the class), most people in the program are fun, carefree, etc just like all other students- but they also know when to shut up and study</p>
<p>Neutral: Don’t listen to people when they say honors classes are always easy or always impossible- it COMPLETELY depends on the professor and the department, At the very beginning of school when everyone’s second question is what dorm do you live in some people judge you for being honors (nerds, etc)- but this passes pretty quickly I promise</p>
<p>Minus: There is a bit of pressure your first year when everyone starts realizing that a 3.4 isn’t that easy to get (depends on your major) and I know a few people that would blame the honors program for that- again passes pretty quickly, you have to take 6 honors classes (1 of which is a two semester freshman course and 1 of which has to be an upperclassmen seminar) which is easy if you take a bunch of them your first year and get them out of the way but if you don’t it can be pretty difficult to find non-elective upperclassmen honors courses</p>
<p>Don’t forget- you can always drop out of it. Except disqualifying you from the honors-only scholarships (that you can only get as a middler or above, usually) or if you have some weird outside scholarship that says you have to be honors, dropping out does NOT take away your merit scholarship. However if you drop out of honors because you have a 1.5 gpa… you’ll probably also lose the scholarship, since they nearly always have a minimum gpa requirement.</p>