College honors - is it worth it?

[fish89]

I'm planning my class schedule for next year. I'll be a senior. If I choose to do college honors, I'll have to take 2 extra classes, which means taking 4 instead of 3 classes each semester. I'd rather not take these extra classes, since I want to focus on my research (I have a few manuscripts I'm working on) and extracurriculars. If I don't take these, I won't graduate with "College Honors" although I'll still graduate cum laude or magna cum laude with departmental honors.

Obviously med schools don't care about honors since everyone (ok, maybe 75%) in med school pretty much has it. Do you think having 'College Honors' is worth anything at all, besides the little tack on the resume? Does that tack on the resume do anything? Is it worth it?

The only plus I can think of doing honors is that the easy non-science honors classes are a GPA booster. What do you think?

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[portlandpixie]

Don't do it. I went into college thinking that being in the honors college would be great but no it only caused my gpa grief. The honors college at my school is primarily lit and history based so if your into writing and liberal arts stuff then go for it. But for me, I realized that I'm way mire of a science person so the honors college doesn't really help me but makes things worse. I mean, I ended up getting b+ and a- but it was alot of work and I still did not get an a. And these were the lower level lit classes so I can't even imagine having to be in a 400 level lit class. That said, I'm dropping out of the honors college next year. But if you think you can do well, do it I guess. Idk about yours but they make us write a thesis based on our major which I think is good for interviews and resumes and it also let's you do ur own research. And I guess it would make you look like a well rounded student as opposed to just a science geek.

 

[Meat]

I'm planning my class schedule for next year. I'll be a senior. If I choose to do college honors, I'll have to take 2 extra classes, which means taking 4 instead of 3 classes each semester. I'd rather not take these extra classes, since I want to focus on my research (I have a few manuscripts I'm working on) and extracurriculars. If I don't take these, I won't graduate with "College Honors" although I'll still graduate cum laude or magna cum laude with departmental honors.

Obviously med schools don't care about honors since everyone (ok, maybe 75%) in med school pretty much has it. Do you think having 'College Honors' is worth anything at all, besides the little tack on the resume? Does that tack on the resume do anything? Is it worth it?

The only plus I can think of doing honors is that the easy non-science honors classes are a GPA booster. What do you think?

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I really got the feeling that most of my interviewers / adcom didn't even look at my class names, only the grades and overall GPA.

If they HAD looked at my classes, I'm sure I would have gotten more questions pertaining to: Hazard analysis critical control points, Livestock and Carcass evaluation, food processing, food law and regulations, etc.

I think your honors classes will be easily overlooked and WAY more effort than they are worth. Spend your time diversifying your ECs and doing research activity.

 

[sshashid87]

I really enjoyed my honors college classes. I felt they were more interesting than the comparable gen-ed classes, and they were more geared towards discussion than mind-numbing busy work. And honestly, I was always taking 2-3 sciences classes + labs every semester, so I needed some sort of humanities course to keep my sanity. But if you don't like the coursework, then there's no point in doing it. I highly doubt adcoms care what classes you took (outside the sciences + required gen-eds) as long as you did well in them.


Sidenote: I took a few classes related to bioethics, health management & regulation, public health, so I thought they were somewhat useful and interesting...

 

[eablackwell]

If you can still graduate cum laude or magna cum laude I especially wouldn't worry about it. The research will likely help you more anyway.

 

[LizzyM]

Honors college will give you a little boost. Publications will give you a little boost. Choosing one over the other shouldn't make a difference.

 

[cfx]

I was in this situation, but needed a few more classes than you. I ended up not doing it. I made a similar thread, and the consensus reflected what you read here. I think someone (LizzyM?) also noted that the thesis is somewhat helpful, though. I just ended up sparing myself the extra work, but still wrote a paper in my lab, which fulfilled a separate requirement anyway.

I guess you have to consider how difficult you think the extra work will be, compared to how much benefit you might see from it. Honors work varies quite a bit from school to school, I hear, so it's kind of an individual thing.

 

[sshashid87]

Oh, I guess that's something else the honors college forced me to do. If I hadn't gone through the honors college, I wouldn't have written my thesis, which I felt was a really good experience for me. Sure, it was a complete pain, and over the course of the last two weeks of the semester, I only slept like 2 hrs/night, but I churned out a really good paper. At the same time though, my research only gave me an abstract publication (this doesn't even count, does it?) and 2 poster presentations (I didn't present, just my name was visible lol), but it sounds like you may get some good publications through your lab, which is great. Do what suits you best...

 

[Web MD]

Honestly I've found that the honors college has done much more to help me with research opportunities and with reliable information compared to my regular undergrad advisors, but the course work itself really hasn't been worth it for me. I'll have to do my thesis this year which sounds like it's going to suck, but I've already come this far so bailing out now seems pointless. As far as those "collegiate honors societies" that charge you
$75-100 to join - well if you're dumb enough to pay then you deserve to lose the money

 

[HolySmokes]

I'm in the Honors program at my college and taking a few extra classes to graduate with honors. I really doubt it will give me that much of an advantage, it was more for my own benefit/ego. I like the Honors classes that I've taken, they're usually a little more interesting, but I'd suggest just doing whatever you think you will enjoy the best.

 

[tiedyeddog]

I'm in the Honors program at my college and taking a few extra classes to graduate with honors. I really doubt it will give me that much of an advantage, it was more for my own benefit/ego. I like the Honors classes that I've taken, they're usually a little more interesting, but I'd suggest just doing whatever you think you will enjoy the best.

This is great advice. I didn't do the whole honors thing and don't regret it. Honors classes here are harder and I didn't see the trade off of gain/time spent in those classes high enough to justify it. I did do a senior research thesis, so I doubt doing honors would have helped anyway.

 

[Fleabeard]

Depending on your major, an honors program might not be all that much extra work. I majored in history, so the lit classes and research thesis were already required. I think there was only one upper division Ancient Classics course that I had to do extra, and it was a blast. If you enjoy humanities classes, go for it.

 

[Dreaming big]

I really like my honors program - plus, added benefit of getting smaller classes

 

[45408]

I did it, and I'm glad I did. I had priority course registration, even as a freshman, so I got all the classes I needed, every single time. I liked the course variety, the classes weren't particularly difficult, and it put me in contact with well-established professors (nearly every professor was fully tenured, as opposed to a lot of my gen ed classes that just had an adjunct lecturer with a discussion taught by a TA). Those are good people to have write your LORs.

If you don't want to do it, then don't force yourself to do it. I initially did it for the priority course registration, then I stayed because I liked it. I was a biology major/chemistry minor, and these liberal arts classes were a nice diversion from all the sciences.

 

[FloatOn]

I'm assuming you've been on the honors track for some time now. If all you have to do is take these two classes, I'd do it. You said they're easy and hopefully they're interesting too. Maybe you'll never get to take these types of classes ever again.

I got a nifty medallion to wear at graduation and an extra star next to my name on the program. It would basically be for personal gratification more than anything.

 

[lebron]

doing honors is stupid and a gpa killer. my friend met with the dean of admissions at a med school and the dean told him that honors classes dont mean anything and arent worth anything more than taking the regular version. he told him that it was better to take the easiest classes possible in order to get a higher gpa.

however, with honors we get priority scheduling so we schedule way ahead of everyone but if i were to do it again i would never do honors. stupid advisors...

 

[Ischemic]

getting an Honors don't mean **** in your application. You are a dime a dozen in the applicant pool. Adcoms could give less thought to whether you did the extra work to get that "honors" on your transcript.

 

[chman]

I think it depends on your school. Some schools have awesome honors programs and some don't. The decision should be about whether or not you find the classes in the honors program to your liking and whether or not you think you can succeed, not whether med-schools will like it.. In the end, the second will follow the first.

 

[sciencebooks]

Don't do it. I went into college thinking that being in the honors college would be great but no it only caused my gpa grief. The honors college at my school is primarily lit and history based so if your into writing and liberal arts stuff then go for it. But for me, I realized that I'm way mire of a science person so the honors college doesn't really help me but makes things worse. I mean, I ended up getting b+ and a- but it was alot of work and I still did not get an a. And these were the lower level lit classes so I can't even imagine having to be in a 400 level lit class. That said, I'm dropping out of the honors college next year. But if you think you can do well, do it I guess. Idk about yours but they make us write a thesis based on our major which I think is good for interviews and resumes and it also let's you do ur own research. And I guess it would make you look like a well rounded student as opposed to just a science geek.

Sounds exactly like my honors' program.

 

[NickNaylor]

Do it if it's something you want to do. I doubt it'll be a game changer and probably isn't worth the grief if you don't want to do it.