By Lacey Okamura
Staff Writer
The College promotes the Honors and Scholars Program as a way of providing “challenging and stimulating opportunities to students who seek to enhance their educational experience.” In its current form, the program does not enhance students’ experiences at all, but rather causes unnecessary stress with little reward.
Many of the “benefits” they claim that students receive as being part of the honors program are glorified. For example, honors students are supposed to receive priority registration when selecting academic classes for the next semester. These alleged priority dates, however, are not priority at all.
Registration for the spring 2025 semester will be open from Nov. 5 to Nov. 15. If the priority date for an honors student is Nov. 11, they are still picking after a majority of graduate and undergraduate students have already selected their courses. Priority should be the first or second day that registration opens, not a few days before it ends. Students may fail to get into their required courses with such a late registration day.
Another benefit the program proclaims is the ability to take classes only available to other honor students. However, these alleged “honors” classes are often regular courses that non-honors students can also take, but honors students are required to. There are very few honors courses offered every semester, and there is no guarantee you will be able to find a class within your area of study. Trying to find honors courses that fit into already busy schedules is challenging, especially with limited options available.
The program requires students to complete five honors courses in order to graduate with the distinction. Only two of the classes can be honors-by-contract, which allows students to turn regular classes into honors courses by completing extra work, such as an additional essay or project. While this may alleviate some of the problems students face in finding honors courses to take, it can only be done twice. Students are still stuck taking three random honors courses they may have no interest in, or that fulfill zero academic requirements, other than honors.
While there are some small scholarships and prizes that honors students are able to apply for, these are typically only available to seniors. There are no incentives for underclassmen to join the honors program, other than potential priority registration. A few years ago, the College removed its freshman honors housing, which was a major motivation for incoming students to participate in the program.
If the honors program wants to attract more students, there needs to be genuine benefits that students will receive by being part of the program. Priority registration, for example, should be the first few days of the registration periods.
It is understandable that the College may not be able to provide separate housing, but there could be an automatic scholarship awarded to honors students to make first and second year housing cheaper. Exclusive scholarships and research opportunities should also be made available to honors students in every grade, not just seniors.
By adding extra benefits and incentives, the honors program will be able to expand. If this expansion happens, the College can start offering more genuine honors courses. Until then, the program will continue to fade out as students lose interest.
