What's so special about Scholars

VelaenOscuridad
Fri, 22 Dec 2006 21:44:49 +0000

Momonthehill, from what my friends in Scholars have told me, you don’t get any scheduling priority, but there are special courses that are reserved only for people in the scholars program.

Saint_Paul is right about immersing you in your field. The Politics, Society and Law (PSL, but close enough) program, for example, not only helps you prepare for law school, but also provides opportunities you can’t get anywhere else. For instance, Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Price winner, really awesome, I shouldn’t have to explain) came to speak at OSU (I sat in the front row!!) and the PSL Scholars got invited to her special reception after the speaking engagement, so they could have MET her. In person. I was insanely jealous. They also got to meet the Foreign Press at some exclusive event, and another time they got to speak with a lot of big names in law, like lawyers who argued to the Supreme Court and members of the Ohio SC. Non-Scholars are not invited and don’t hear about it until after the fact, though I don’t think we’re specifically barred from attending.

Anyway, if you are majoring in an area that falls under the Scholars program, I’d say definitely apply. It provides some amazing opportunities, but isn’t worth it if you’re not very interested in that subject. Like, if you don’t really want to be a doctor or biomedical researcher or something, being in the Biological Sciences Scholars program could just be boring. But if you’re passionate about one of the Scholars areas, definitely do it, it’s amazing.

And in response to Saint_Paul again, other residential learning communities are nothing like that. I live in Honors, and we get the priority scheduling, which is awesome, and lots of honors classes are only open to honors students. But it’s not focused on any certain area like Scholars is.