Is there any current or former Bonner Scholar Program participant that can talk about how they juggled their course work schedule with their Bonner Community Engagement requirements?
Hey @nopoto457 ! Bonner Scholar at UR here. First of all, if you are offered a place in the scholarship program, I’d highly recommend you take it. 
Secondly, Bonner prioritizes academics first, service second. That being said, you can’t really be making excuses in the program – unless you have established rapport with Bonner staff, you can only miss out on ONE mandatory event per academic year (for which, at least in the past, we use a ‘grace card’ for). As long as you have clear lines of communication with staff, they’ll understand if a class eats into mandatory mandatory Bonner meetings, etc. You WILL have to make up that time missed, maybe have a meeting to catch up, but don’t worry about your academics coming in second when it comes to mandatory programming.
I’m heavily involved on campus, and Bonner fits pretty seamlessly into my social and academic life. One reason for this is that you’ll find that most of your service opportunities and the Bonner community creates tight friendships and social groups. As you likely know, the commitment for Bonners is 8-10 hours at your service site per week. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not too much commitment – think of it as just two afternoons or shifts per week.
Professors and students WILL be flexible with you. The program has a lot of respect and clout, so getting out of an activity won’t be too hard of a juggling act, and people will understand. It’s not “uncool” to be a Bonner for sure, and that really alleviated a lot of my concerns when it came to the juggling of responsibilities. Furthermore, you have opportunities to do “non CLA” hours. This means hours logged not at your service site. These opportunities would include going to cultural events (i.e. film festivals, museum visits, arts programs, lectures and talks, dinners, community meetings, specific cause related work, service trips, etc). Instead of feeling like you might be missing out on opportunities, you’re even more involved in them. Bonners find things that most other students don’t find, or aren’t aware of. They’re involved, enriched.
If you have a passion for service, Bonner is for you. You’ll learn to have strong time management skills and find out what really matters for you. Most Bonners I know are actually heavily involved on campus, and still have great academic standing. It’s completely achievable.
I know that I have to do 40 hours/month, so a quick sketch of my week. I have 4-5 classes. I’m expected to study about 6-9 hours for each class, more or less. On the lower side, that’s going to be about 30 hours. That’s around 4 hours per day. Adding in two service shifts, or some non-CLA programming in the evening isn’t going to hurt that much. I’ve never had a problem balancing my coursework with my Bonner life. It took some scheduling at first, but it’s down to a system. I highly doubt that you’d get burnt out. You’ll have to make a point to study hard, and to Bonner hard, but that’s not going to be rough for you after you get used to it.
Big picture: Bonner is great. Don’t worry about it eating into coursework. I can’t recommend the program highly enough.
Please reach out to me for any more questions, any specific ones. Again, I can’t recommend Bonner enough. It’s the highlight of my college experience, it’s made me such a more aware person, and built so many friendships. Bonner culture (“Bonner Love”) is strong, and we help each other to succeed.
haha wow i realize that you’ve already accepted your offer. I low key forgot we’re already at the end of the summer, but whatever. Hopefully that still answered your question.
Thank you detailed response, my son is doing the Bonner program.