<p>I need information about graduating with Honors vs. non-honors specifically in say economics or statistics. Both have substantial math requirements. If you have a choice between math regular vs math honors, which one should one chose? From what I read it seems that you do not actually need honors math classes to graduate with honors. You need a GPA above 3.5 and an honors thesis.
Will the fact that you have not taken honors level math classes prevent you from graduating with Honors?</p>
<p>Not at all. You can read the Honors requirement for each major in the course catalog, which is available online. Honors in Math requires that you take either Honors Analysis or Honors Algebra, but there’s no equivalent requirement for Statistics or Economics.</p>
<p>That shouldn’t end your analysis, however. If you are an entering student, and deciding which calculus course to take, you should really talk to your advisor and to someone in the Math department about the differences among Honors Calculus and the two other basic calculus sequences. Among my kids’ friends, everyone who took Honors Calculus thought it was a ton of work and a terrific course; no one had such warm feelings about 150s or 130s Calculus. I also think, though I may be wrong on this, that if you are an Econ or Statistics major, and you don’t take Honors Calculus, you are going to have to take an extra quarter of Math 199 to meet the prerequisites for upper-level math courses you will need to take. Also, 130s Calculus may not work for Econ or Statistics.</p>
<p>@JHS thank you for your response. That is what I read. However underlying in the literature is department recommendation for an Honors. This is such a subjective area.
My child took 160’s level course for a few weeks, then dropped out. She also had honors chem at the same time. She quite regrets the drop out decision, now is in 150’s level. She thinks that decision now shuts out all honors in any eco or stats major that she is interested in. </p>
<p>I can’t believe that’s right, Dipali. The departmental recommendation has got to be based primarily on how a student performed in her classes in the department, and on her honors thesis if there is one. It does not make sense that either department would punish a student that way for a decision made in the first quarter of her first year, before even declaring a major. If she takes 199, which is there so that people who didn’t take 160s can catch up, and she takes the other math the relevant department advises her to take, there’s no reason at all why she should be ineligible for departmental honors.</p>
<p>Two additional things: </p>
<p>First, your daughter should go to the Director of Undergraduate Studies in each department and ask. She’ll get a straight answer. It will either be what I said above, or what she thinks, but in either case she’ll know, and be able to take that into account. (Her academic adviser may also be able to give her an authoritative answer. By the way, where was her academic adviser when (a) she decided to take two difficult honors courses, and (b) she picked the one more relevant to her projected majors to drop out of? The academic advisers are there to help people avoid mistakes.)</p>
<p>Second, it’s not clear that departmental honors mean anything at all, to anybody. It’s a bunch of extra work, and lots of very good students decide not to bother with it. If they are trying to go into a PhD program, they really need to do the honors thesis and seminar, and honors more or less follow from that, but if they are going out into the world, or to professional school, no one cares. Something I definitely noticed during my hours of analyzing Convocation programs during my kids’ interminable graduations was that only around half of the Economics majors who were in Phi Beta Kappa (=~top 10% GPA) or were getting general honors (=~ top 60% GPA) were also getting departmental honors. The same also seemed true of Math. In the humanities and other social sciences, the overlap between PBK or general honors and departmental honors was close to 1:1.</p>