Hi!
My friend and I, we will be rooming together, will both be attending the University of Alabama in the Fall of 2016, and we are both eligible to apply to the Honors College. This further leads to the Honors Housing. I would rather live in a non-honors community like Presidential Village, while my roommate would like to live in Ridgecrest. I am concerned that if I live in Ridgecrest I will be more secluded from a lot of the people who are not in the honors program and I won’t have as many opportunities to meet new people at school. I feel as though since I am already going to be a little secluded in the Honors College, I do not want to be further secluded by being in the Honors Housing.
Does anybody have any pros and cons of the Honors Housing or advice on the situation?
Thank you so very much. Roll tide!
You won’t be secluded by being in the HC. Each semester, most of your classes won’t be in the HC. Most of your classes will be in regular classes.
I think that’s an unfounded concern. Very little of your everyday life will have anything to do with the Honors College. You will be exposed to lots of students who aren’t in the Honors College. That said, I don’t think it’s all that crucial to live in honors housing, either. There was a time when most of the suite style dorms were honors housing, so it was much easier to be in the most desirable dorms if you were in honors. That’s not the case anymore.
OP, my DD was at honor’s housing at Ridgecrest last year, while a very good friend chose to come to UA late and had housing at Presidential II. DD wanted the opportunity to meet other HC kids at housing and she personally knew one of her room-mates from HS. She liked RCW location the best and it worked out great. They often spent free time at the rec center in Presidential. If housing spot is equally important to both of you, someone has to ‘give in’ unless you choose to have other room-mates instead at two locations. I would recommend you both get your housing deposits in as soon as they start that (Oct 1 historically) for best choice/first choice time slot to choose housing. If you decide to be room-mates, can get signed up to same suite together with use of the housing priority system. Roll Tide!
No need to worry. Honors housing will not guarantee that you will feel a part of the Honors College. The Honors College is so huge at Alabama, very unlike the honors programs at other schools that limit their honors colleges to a much smaller cohort of students creating a tighter community. In addition, the Honors Housing does not offer anything special to Honors College students (like quiet hours, for example, that other colleges offer in honors housing.) There is no great sense of community in the honors housing either - you will probably never get to know many of your neighbors on your same floor. So choose the housing you like best. The floorplans at Pres Village 2 and Ridgecrest South/North are very similar (Pres Village 2 is just newer.) Ridgecrest West/East have much more spacious suites. And, in addition to your friend, make sure to find the best roommates you can. It won’t matter which housing you choose if you end up with nightmares for roommates. Best of luck.
The great thing about the Honors College at Alabama is that the level of involvement is completely up to the student. There really isn’t any effort to segregate the honors students from the rest of the population. As long as you are making at least some progress towards meeting the Honors College graduation requirements, you can pretty much just sit back and accept the HC registration priority if that is all that you want from the HC. Or you can become super involved – take advantage of all the activities that are announced in the weekly newsletter, run for office in the Honors College Assembly, go to the faculty coffees, set up lunches with profs through Out To Lunch, and generally have your life revolve around the Honors College. It is completely your choice. Most students fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
As far as the dorm environment, one of my HC kids was in RCE and the other is in Pres. They have had roughly the same social experience in the dorm – which has been great. They both made a conscious effort to knock on doors, say hi in the elevator, hang out in the common areas and generally be social and both have ended up with a good network of male and female friends on their floor. (But as Chesterton points out, the student does have to make the effort. The development of friendships isn’t nearly as organic as it is in say Tutwiler where the doors are always open, pretty much everyone has the common experience of going through rush and most of the girls are Greek.)
There are a lot of HC kids who chose Pres because it is newer – so if you are trying to avoid other HC students, that isn’t necessarily going to work – almost a quarter of the incoming class is in the HC so not everyone fits in Ridgecrest. Honestly, I would say pick based on location and then make the effort to get to know people wherever you live.