Do the Honors Program. Seriously.
You owe it to yourself to take the time now to check your campus honors program out, and if you qualify, join.
By Xavier Royer — March 21, 2023
Most universities have some sort of undergraduate honors program. They may have different names or be department specific, but there is usually something on campus designed for students who want to be proactive about classroom and academic excellence. These programs' quality and specific design will vary from university to university, but every student who qualifies should complete the honors program from their campus. This is a hill I will happily die on, despite many programs having a poor design or incentivizing the wrong qualities. I also agree that many students have legitimate gripes over their honors program. I do not care. Honors programs often have more subtle benefits that almost always override the annoyances. This article is my pitch for the honors program and why even a program that is simply a series of hoops to jump through has merit.
Resume Misconceptions
First, I want to address the honors program and its relation to resumes and CVs. The honors program is unlikely to boost your resume in the way you may think. It may, however, end up being a tie-breaker at best against an applicant whose very similar to you otherwise. Having honors on your resume does do two things. First, it shows you are the type of person to do an honors program and take that kind of initiative. It may not pop on the CV, but it will give you something to discuss in a cover letter or statement of purpose type document. Second, the things you do as an honors student, which I will address in the rest of this article, might be standalone items that do make an impact on future applications. The program may not stand out, but the big project the program enabled you to complete will. See the long game with this one.
Surrounded by Other Strong Students
Whether the program includes "honors" courses or not (hopefully it does), you will still be surrounding yourself with other strong students. I found it easy to be complacent in some of my classes as an undergrad; that A- looks pretty good surrounded by B's and C's. But when I would get to my honors courses and surround myself with 4.0 students, it motivated me to keep up with that group and raise my performance. I had bigger ambitions than the B and C students, and seeing what the bar looked like for other ambitious students made a big difference.
Opportunities to Take Cool Classes and Do Cool Stuff
Additionally, being in honors classes just has a different tone to it. Everyone is there because they want to be there or will at least put in a solid effort for the sake of the grade. Most honors courses were more enjoyable because the students contributed more to the class. My honors program also understood that honors students would be more academically mature and naturally engaged in a course, so the courses offered could be more non-traditional. I took a "Reacting to the Past" course, a terrorism course that entered our class into a contest to make an anti-extremism campaign, and one that explored the topic of nostalgia, amongst others.
These took the credit hours of what would have been Intro to Western Civ, a 2nd or 3rd-level political science course, and humanities class. Most people would rather have my course lineup than the standard options. Additionally, as long as you show some ambition and have thought the idea through, most honors programs will allow you to steer it in whatever direction. If there is something you want to accomplish as a student but do not know where to start, talk to the honors program. Their reputation is your reputation, and if there is a cool project or study you want to initiate, they will point you in the right direction, if not directly assist you in this themselves.
Campus Engagement
Campus engagement is important, but it can sometimes be tricky just to dive into without some program or club to do so through. Honors easily fill that roll. Most programs are full of motivated and ambitious students, and naturally end up being at most campus events in some factor. This means the honors program offers plenty of opportunities to engage on campus. Students can often enroll directly in the program. While other clubs and programs may take some time to join and get assimilated into in that first semester, honors programs often afford students these opportunities on day one.
A small, final argument for joining is that Honors programs usually have pretty straightforward acceptance requirements and easy-to-understand criteria for completion. As long as the GPA is met, the barrier to entry for these programs is usually quite low. You owe it to yourself to take the time now to check your campus honors program out, and if you qualify, join.
Xavier Royer
I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.
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