<p>I am an incoming freshman and have been accepted into UCI's honors program. I heard that it was a huge GPA killer and not worth it, but also that priority registration is a must these days and that being a part of the program would look great for grad school. are there any current students that have any thoughts/experiences they would like to share?? and how is the honors housing compared to the regular housing? are classes significantly smaller and more personal? would backing out affect my odds of getting the classes I want?</p>
<p>Don’t know how you can really consider it a GPA killer your first year considering the CHP freshman dorms has the highest average GPA’s of all the dorms. </p>
<p>Honors housing is the same as regular housing, except you live with mainly people in CHP as well. Can get boring at times if you’re the type of person that’s into heavy drugs, alcohol, and the party scene. However, people are generally really nice and they’re always willing to help you since they’re taking the same classes as you (Humcore, Chem, Bio). In a way, honors housing is more of a GPA booster.</p>
<p>Classes are the same as regular classes. Only in Humcore Discussion are you with honors people on your first year (and Soc Core and Science core youre second and third year).</p>
<p>Priority is nice since you don’t have to worry about not getting classes. Also, you will usually be able to have good times for your classes, especially if you like waking up late and are not a morning person. </p>
<p>You will still usually get the classes you want if you don’t get priority enrollment. However, you won’t always get the teacher you want or the times you want.</p>
<p>Imo. It’s worth it. There’s a reason they chose you to join CHP. They don’t just pick names randomly out of a hat, or at least I don’t think they do.</p>
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Everyone I’ve met who put the work into hum core came out with decent grades. The people I’ve found who did poorly wildly underestimated the amount of work they should do. </p>
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Well what do you value and then we can say whether or not its worth it. If you just want to be an honors student and get some stamps/cords its not worth it. If you’re actually interested in the material or want to become a better writer, maybe.</p>
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Personally, this would be the key reason I want to join CHP. Some majors more so then others though. For example, if you’re an engineering major its not worth it. You already know you’re gonna be taking EECS 70a your sophomore year etc etc so there’s no reason to register for the class 2 weeks before your normal classmates (whom you’ll be taking all your classes with). But other majors where classes tend to fill up fast (English? poly sci?) will definitely be worth it. </p>
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Not really? This isn’t high school where the student body tends to separate into honors and non-honors populations. If you want a PhD in physics, they’re going to care about your physics grades and your research. Not because you’re affiliated with an honors program.</p>
<p>Although you can argue that doing well in the honors program prepares you for getting into great graduate programs. Hard to say. I’ve seen CHP students get into Berk and MIT for graduate school and I’ve seen non-CHP get into Yale, Stanford and Harvard for grad school. If you want to get into graduate school, focus on that, not doing CHP. </p>
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You take ALL your classes along side regular students. Except in Hum core, your discussions are honors students only. There are no “honor only” sections of classes exclusively for CHP students (ie honors english 28c or honors physics 7b). There is an honors chemistry section, but that’s not restricted to honors CHP students. </p>
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I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the question.
Other then losing priority enrollment (which you don’t really get for the first enrollment because you enroll at SPOP and not online at your own time) nothing happens. Is this what you’re asking?</p>
<p>thanks for the detailed input! my last question was just referring to basically how difficult it is for a non-honors person to get classes, which was redundant. I really don’t know the details about the program and I’ve been getting assumptions from what other students tell me. It relieves me that honors students aren’t isolated from everyone else. At other schools I looked into, the honors program had their own specialized courses that only honors students took.</p>
<p>by the way, I will be a business econ major. I definitely want to either minor or double major in something else, and was also wondering if many other students in the program do that as well</p>
<p>double majoring isn’t a bad idea. Try to chose something that will either complement it or otherwise compensate for it’s shortcomings.</p>
<p>E.g. I’m a Quantitative Economics major and have minors in stats and accounting, both of which offer their own specialized skill sets while being somewhat natural offshoots. The other route to go would’ve been to have added on a major which emphasizes soft skills such as Psychology or English. As I have both work an leadership experience which conveyed these soft skills, I didn’t feel a need to back them up by means of a degree.</p>
<p>Remember at the end of the day, your major and minors only take one or two lines on your resume. Everything else matters too. To some extent, your major doesn’t matter, just get a high GPA and obtain relevant work/internship experience from well respected firms. Don’t be afraid to major in something you genuinely enjoy. If your interest is business, an econ in addition to another major in an area you genuinely is a good way to go. If I had it to do over again, I’d have tried to have double minored in economics and sociology and majored business admin. I would’ve enjoyed life a lot more as I could’ve taken a lot of random classes and focused more on subjects I enjoy(not stats)</p>