<p>I'm a second semester freshmen in engineering at VT. I got an "invitation" to the honors program (I still have to apply though, I think). I got a 3.9 first semester, but I was taking fairly basic classes, and I know it's going to get a lot harder. </p>
<p>Pretty much my question is, is if Honors is even worth it. It seems to only add less flexibility to the already rigid and intense engineering curriculum (I like to take interesting electives). I plan on going to business school somewhere down the road , so I guess honors would help my application.</p>
<p>Any input/experiences on how legit the honors program really is would be much appreciated, thanks.</p>
<p>Depends on what you’ll make of it, I suppose.</p>
<p>The chance to get close with the Honors staff is a big boost; bigger than the priority registration, I’d say. Good luck finding a group of staff anywhere else at the school that works anywhere near the level the Honors staff does. </p>
<p>If you can get in/are interested, housing is an awesome place to meet kids who aren’t just pushing paper or going through the motions of college. People like that exist all over the student body, but from a percentages standpoint, the concentration is understandably higher among honors students.</p>
<p>I’m a double major and minor in engineering, and you’ll find there’s plenty of kids like that as well as more traditional approaches. It’s pretty clear that the diplomas weren’t designed or reworked to accommodate engineering, but they still aren’t hard to attain if you put some thought into your planner. If there’s something you’re truly passionate about getting involved with or doing, I don’t think there’s any resource on campus better than Honors. Whether it’s traveling or research or organizations (on or off campus), the staff is well connected and it’s a safe bet that Honors kids are more motivated than most other kids. We’re not all nerds, and there are plenty who are “meh” about Honors, but there’s a lot of interesting people. It’s not really built for people who want a check mark on their resume, like a lot of other programs seemed at schools I visited. Honors was why I ended up settling for Tech, to be honest. It’s nice to know that in a 24,000+ student body school, you can be on first name basis with a faculty member who will remember you. Each engineering department also has a dedicated honors advisor, and they have far less students to deal with which means more time to help you. </p>
<p>That being said, some people go all four years in Honors without actually finishing a diploma. It’s frowned upon and dishonest, but possible.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great response hokagesama! Sounds pretty worthwhile to me. What about the actual honors classes themselves? Are they substantially more difficult or do they have a bigger workload than the “regular” classes?</p>
<p>For the most part the honors engineering classes are the regular class plus an extra project or something at the end. You’ll be in the room with the people taking the class regularly, just doing more work. There just aren’t enough people in engineering honors to justify separate classes for them. That’s how it worked in my major (MSE) anyway, maybe something like Mechanical that is huge is different.</p>
<p>As chuy said, it’s tough for Engineering majors to get into honors sections of classes because there aren’t that many.</p>
<p>For some classes (honors math, for example) the class will be much smaller than the same class (but not honors) and you’ll be with all honors kids. The teachers volunteer to teach the sections and that plus the combined drive/dedicated amongst fellow students is a big help. Our diffeq class was great and everybody really pulled together to learn the material.</p>
<p>The class average on most tests was above a 90%, so you don’t get the huge curve boosts like you do in normal classes, but it doesn’t matter if you’re doing well anyway. I don’t think most professors set out to make the class more difficult just because it’s an honors section.</p>