Honors program in College?

MrFoofs said:

I'm a freshman at a 4 year state university that most will not have heard of. I'm in the honors program at that school and I have a ton of ap credits which basically means I don't have to take any gen ed classes. But because of that I can't take any honors courses. So my adviser wants me to do an honors compact which basically means I take a class towards my major like chem 1(which I plan to take next semester) and take it as an honors course aka more work like writing papers. Any advice? Would it be too much to handle? What would look good on med school apps? Does graduating with honors really matter as long as my grades are good? Thanks in advance!

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It's an extra thing that shows you are going the extra mile academically. I did university honors for my major and it hasn't been mentioned in any of my interviews.

That's not to say that it isn't appreciated by medical schools though. I happened to like my honors classes and sometimes you feel like you accomplish something by doing honors projects. If you are a strong academic student I don't think that it will be a struggle for you to go through with this.

I hate to go against the grain here, but isn't college hard enough as it is? I never understood why honors automatically makes you smarter, unless you have a research project/thesis to show for it. I guess it depends on the honors program.

If there is nothing to be gained in the honors college, like preferential registration, small classes with more motivated students, special study lounge or carrels in the library, dorm with smarter students,
then drop it. You might be able to graduate with departmental honors if you do a special project in your major. That way, you still end up with some decoration at graduation. I know you are planning on med school now, but that might change in the next 3 years, and the honors designation may make a difference in another career path.

It depends on what your honors program is like. At my school, it's a different form of learning. There are generally no exams in honors classes, but we do have case-based and group learning exercises. My school is very, very intensely invested in the sciences, so our honors program focuses on broadening the horizons of students with humanities, social sciences, etc. I've actually found the honors classes I've taken to be way easier (and more fun!).

Besides, I get to register first for classes. That's a great perk.

Don't do honors because you think medical schools will like it. Do honors because you find it rewarding. If you do not, do not do it. Sometimes the benefits (early registration, nice housing, $$, etc) can be nice, but they might just end up making you miserable too, which can end up in lowered GPA (which will hurt you far more than honors will help you) as well as a bad college experience in general.

Basically, do what makes you happy. Medical schools will not really care either way.

Honestly the only real value to doing honors in terms of increasing med school/grad school acceptance is the honors thesis since it's the best thing you can show for research other than presenting at professional conferences or publishing. Taking honors classes doesn't really mean anything; if you want to show increased academic rigor load up on upper division classes or maybe even take a grad class or two.

If you're from Arkansas, I think there's a pretty good chance we went to the same undergrad...

That being said, I graduated honors college from a program that sounds identical. I didn't really find the contracts to be too much extra work. Most professors always ended up asking me to do a presentation and paper. I ended up getting to talk about a lot of things I thought were interesting that we normally wouldn't cover. I also got unlimited printing in the honors college computer lab, a stipend, and made some great friends. I think the key is if you want to go ahead and stick with it, make sure you always contract a class you're extremely interested in, pick a topic you can be passionate about, etc. That always made it seem less like work to me.