Is it worth doing honors?

TXaggie25
Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:42:49 +0000

I am a Sophomore and this will be my first semester doing Honors. I personally think it will be worth the “extra work” for a multitude of reasons.

First of all, the classes are MUCH smaller. I abhorred the fact that in a regular course, I had to struggle to hear the professor in class because there were 250+ students in the room. In an honors course, classroom sizes range around 20-25 people.

Second, you get to personally know your professor and vice versa. This helps in the long run when you really need to ask for a recommendation or what not. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to get to know your professor as a person in general.

Third, if you complete enough honors credit, you can graduate with University Honors, Foundation Honors, or even both. It’s nice to graduate and have them call your name saying so and so graduated Magna Cum Laude with University and Foundation Honors. Plus you get a pretty stole on your graduation gown Which you probably still get if you graduate as a regular Magna Cum Laude without honors…but I’m not really sure.

Fourth, it’s for your own sake. If you plan on going to graduate school, I feel like going the extra mile with honors will help prepare for the future graduate work you will have to endure.

Fifth, from what I have heard, the “extra work” really isn’t that big of a deal. For example, I will be taking HIST 105 Honors and Math 166 Honors. After a bit of research, HIST 105 honors only differs from the regular honors in testing (all free response as opposed to half free response and half multiple choice). For Math 166 Honors, the difference is there’s a required math lab to take and perhaps a little bit more material to learn.

Lastly, priority registration is a wonderful incentive! It’s such a pain to have to constantly refresh Howdy in hopes of someone dropping a course you want to be in.

You should do it! (: Plus, when you apply to scholarships, you can always say you’re in honors, and at A&M, that automatically means you have at least a 3.5 GPR (which is NOT bad at all).

Hope this helped!