<p>What are the advantages and disadvantages of taking honors classes in college(I want to go to law school when I graduate)? In the end do you think it is worth it?</p>
<p>I'm still in the process of figuring that out...so far I've come to the conclusion that the only real benefits are having "Honors" written on your diploma and getting priority registration.</p>
<p>looks good when you apply to jobs, priority registration, more in-depth coverage in class, usually more intelligent discussions. I've found that honors classes aren't usually any more difficult than regular classes, just different in structure.</p>
<p>Difficulty definitely depends on the school. The honors classes at my school require a ridiculous amount of time if you plan on making an A in them.</p>
<p>The intelligent discussion also depends greatly on the composition of the class...my first honors class's "intelligent discussion" would be much better described as intelligent silence.</p>
<p>no its not worth it unelss you're truly into the material and want to go in depth. if you're doing it for career/grad school its not worth it. its better to concentrate on your regular coursework and activities and excel there.</p>
<p>katho- the difficulty of honors classes more clearly depends on the department. the expectations for an honors english class are going to be much different for an honors chemistry class. i go to a pretty difficult school, but in my field i've found that honors doesn't vary too greatly from regular courses due to course material. i wouldn't dare attempt an honors chem class, however. </p>
<p>the professor is also a significant variable. </p>
<p>ben- i disagree somewhat about the doing it for grad school thing. if a student knows that they can handle their honors coursework well and if they intend to apply to a selective school (or job), prestigious honors will give them a leg up. Obviously it isn't worth doing honors SOLELY for how it will look on your transcript, especially if you do poorly as a result of the rigor. But doing anything extra when it comes to selective positions is generally a good idea. </p>
<p>I suggest that the op enroll in an honors class that appeals to them without committing to the entire program if this is possible at that school. It will help you test the honors waters and see if its something you want to do.</p>
<p>I've generally been very happy with my decision to take the honors path, but others have had bad experiences. It's a personal decision and the variables are too great to make a general statement about the worth of honors work as a whole.</p>
<p>I love the honors program at my school. It's worth it if you want to learn for the sake of learning it's really nice. In my school honors classes take the place of regular GEs and some don't require more work than regular GEs. It depends on the teacher and the class.</p>
<p>Yeah, our schools' honors programs seem to be very different as well. Basically the only majors that have their own honors courses here are the freshman Engineering students. The rest are open/required for everyone.</p>
<p>What makes them difficult, other than the writing standards, isn't really the material but the amount of it.</p>
<p>regular classes in college are hard enough... and there isnt really any size advantage either, im in all regular classes and the majority are under 20, ide say if your not super qualified for honors classes just stick to the regular ones</p>
<p>One thing I've noticed at my school is that honors classes tend to have the mentality of "if you put in the work, you'll get a good grade". The regular sections, especially for common freshmen/weeder classes, tends to be more like "you can put in as much work as you want, and we'll still find a way to screw you over on the exams". Honors classes also tend to be a lot smaller, so you get more personalized attention.</p>
<p>What my school has that I really like is basically an honors math sequence for math majors. Instead of doing what most schools do with calc III/DiffEQ (which really are more for chem/business/econ/physics/etc people), you jump right into the theoretical stuff. We basically covered all of undergraduate mathematics and some introductory graduate material in 4 semesters.</p>
<p>Im taking an honors poli sci class this semester. It has 20 people (max 25 seats) vs the 300 of a regular class. In addition, all the grades are essays rather than tests, and I love writing infinitely more than studying for tests.</p>
<p>At my school (UMD-College Park), the honors program runs two types of courses: H-versions, which are smaller-sized versions of certain courses (calc I, II, III, psychology, govt, english101, etc) that replace TA discussion with extended time with the professor, and Honors Seminars, which are specialized classes on subjects choses by the teacher capped at 20 students that cover a wide variety of topics--these are usually taken to satisfy CORE requirements or simply because they're interesting. I took a seminar called "Novels and Who We Are" this past semester, and it was by far my favorite class.</p>
<p>The honors courses at my school seem to be easier.</p>