<p>Your question is super broad, since CHP comes with a mixture of academic and social differences from a non-CHP university experience. So I’ll cover just a few things that I would’ve liked to know as a freshman-- and how I personally feel about them!</p>
<p>CHP Required Courses: This is the academic portion of the program, and the dreaded Humanities Core that you’ll hear everyone lamenting about. That’s the course you’re required to take your freshman year. Then sophomore year, you have to take Social Science Core, and Junior year you’ll be taking Science Core unless you took Honors Chemistry freshman year. Personally, I didn’t take Honors Chemistry because I’m not a science major-- but all my friends are, and needless to say, the stress can be intense. Like, really, intense. But that seems to be the way it is for any science class, so you’ll want to ask a real science major if you want opinions on that. Otherwise, Humanities Core was really not all that bad. Everyone whines about it, but I thought it was easy. It’s just a matter of keeping up-- and you know, not even, really. I didn’t do half of the readings and I was fine, got a grade any CHP Student would be proud of. And some of the topics were actually really interesting. (Some weren’t.) It was really helpful in terms of transitioning into college style classes and expectations. But by sophomore year, you’ll be rolling your eyes over the required classes, because they take up so much of your schedule, and they feel really… irrelevant to what you’re majoring in. That’s my experience anyway. I’m going to stick with it for reasons I’ll talk about later, but personally, Science Core seriously the bane of my existence because I haven’t the slightest care for the sciences, and my science major friends feel the same way about Humanities and Social Science Core. It’s pretty tedious, and it can be a GPA drag if you don’t suck it up and study.</p>
<p>Priority Enrollment: This is like, 90% of the reason why CHP is worth it. Frankly, the satisfaction that comes from a senior’s face when they find out a CHP freshman’s enrollment window is earlier than theirs is such a great feeling-- and other than that, it really is a load off your mind to not have to worry about getting into your classes, and sometimes literally being the first to sign up for them. The only thing they don’t tell you is that you’ll still be fighting tooth and nail for your Core classes if you want a specific time. You’re competing with other honors kids who also have priority enrollment for those classes after all.</p>
<p>Social: I lived in the Shire, in Middle Earth, which is the CHP hall. My year we had a ton of spirit, and it was a really great place to live, wonderful atmosphere. There were fellow residents there who were willing to help you with homework, to study together, to remind you of assignments you’d forgotten about and other helpful things that really start to add up. You tend to share most of your classes with the people you live with in a CHP hall, so you see a lot of them-- which can be both a blessing and a curse. But beyond freshman year, you might branch out from your dorm and you get to be friends with everyone else in CHP too. It’s a good social scene, but it’s definitely anything but rowdy. I’m not sure about other generations of CHP, but everyone I know in CHP is pretty tame in terms of partying and clubbing and things like that. If you want a more expanded social experience in University, I’d look beyond CHP. Either that, or you’re going to have to get really involved with CHP’s Student Council. </p>
<p>Stress: Well since you specifically mentioned stress levels, I thought I’d tell you about the levels of how stressed I am being in CHP compared to how I’d feel if I weren’t. And… honestly, I don’t think it’d be any different. Most kids in CHP or considering CHP stress about their grades-- but if they weren’t in the program, they’d still stress about it anyway, right? Might as well get the bang for your buck since you’re going to stress either way. I definitely think it’s worth it, but mind you I haven’t gotten to writing the required honors thesis or doing the honors research, so this is just an overview of how you’ll feel your first two years of CHP.</p>
<p>Hope that helped, and tl;dr: It’s not stressful at all for anyone who has a semblance of a work ethic. (And a work ethic is something that’s harder to come by in college than you’d expect…)</p>
let’s make a collection of differt viewpoints.</p>