Honors Program and RC: Pros, Cons, Reputations

<p>Someone I know at Michigan told me that the honors program really doesnt have any perks. In fact, she told me it made it more difficult to take classes she liked because the honors requirements took up too much of her curriculum. She also explained that anyone can graduate with honors from Michigan just be going to an advisor senior year and writing an honors thesis. How true is this and what is the general opinion on the honors program/do you recommend it?</p>

<p>Also--the Residential College.</p>

<p>How true is the reputation of the RC of being a hippie haven full of arts/drama majors, etc. Do people drop out of the RC just to avoid the two year housing requirement and be able to live off campus. </p>

<p>Can you be in the Honors program and the RC at the same time? If so do you live in East or South Quad.</p>

<p>Alexandre hook it up with some words of wisdom</p>

<p>Honors College- You have to take a certain amount of honors courses to get the designated "sophomore honors" (it might be a sticker on your degree im not sure)-but the lecture classes have extra discussion sections and homework. For junior and senior year (after declaring your major), if you earn a certain gpa, usually around 3.2-3.5 of your major courses and write a thesis (other requirements may exist-each dept. has a different policy), you graduate with an honors degree. I am personally choosing to just do the latter, as the only advantage in the first 2 years I saw was taking great books, and I have read most of the works taught in the class. Some people in honors love it, and others hate it. </p>

<p>RC- The rc has the reputation of being only hippies, ultra liberals, and weird people, and to some extent, this is true; HOWEVER, some of the people are really interesting and have really interesting viewpoints to share. For RC, most people stay in for at least two years and live in east quad both years. The big thing with RC is the intensive language requirement, which is about 6 credits per semester. Again, some people hate the RC and some love it. </p>

<p>You can do RC and honors at the same time, and you will live in east quad. Honors does not guarentee you south quad (this year there was an overflow). </p>

<p>Good luck on your decisions!</p>

<p>Alexandre say:</p>

<p>"Knowledge is good"! hehe</p>

<p>My words of wisdom. Now pay up people! </p>

<p>Seriously, the Honors College at Michigan is not as significant as the honors college at other state universities, primarily because Michigan's general undergraduate student population is already quite smart and has access to amazing resources.</p>

<p>The RC is an interesting program. It is essentially a LAC within the University. That means you have a certain "type" of student, mainly interested in the moment and not in what is yet to come. Not all students at the RC are hippies, but many are grungy liberals. Dhani Jones, LB extraordinaire, was part of the RC. So clearly, not all RC students are treehuggers. Some will actually level trees! LOL But most RC students are more interested in getting a well rounded education than about their career or professional graduate programs.</p>

<p>One can most certainly be part of the Honors program and of the RC at the same time. Most RC students live in East Quad. South Quad is mainly for Honors college students, but as Nirvana already pointed out, this year's honors class is possibly the largest ever at Michigan.</p>

<p>I hope this answers most of your questions. Let me know if you have more questions.</p>

<p>Can you guys elaborate on the south quad overflow? Does this mean that at this point you can't get into south quad?</p>

<p>2 floors of sq (out of 8 total) are designated honors (I'm pretty sure). The rest are sophomores, athletes, and other freshmen. It is still possible to get assigned to south quad, and I think they are limiting honors next year to try to put the people who want honors housing in south quad. Really all the dorms except for markley are pretty similar with regard to room size, and despite the rumors, all the food, no matter where you go, tastes pretty much the same.</p>

<p>What exactly are the honors requirements? I have heard of them but never seen exactly what they are. I'm not huge on literature and humanities-related stuff so would it be wise to drop it after frosh year?</p>

<p>Yeah, when I went to Campus Day on Tuesday, I didn't think that the Honors program was explained or promoted very well. Afterwards I didn't feel like there was much advantage to doing Honors, could someone please clear this up?</p>

<p>Also, if I love foreign languages but don't like English, would the RC be a good thing or not?</p>

<p>RC is a great environment for learning languages.</p>

<p>Is it possible to have a social life if you're in the Honors Program?</p>

<p>Social life? Yes.</p>

<p>What I hear them all complaining about is that they're forced to take certain classes for their electives every semester - and that the "honors" courses they're stiffarmed into taking aren't much different than any other classes anway (plus other kids can get into them, but don't HAVE to).</p>

<p>RC = odd group from the sample I've met</p>

<p>some people in rc are weird, but most are cool. Some of the hardest partiers i met are in honors. For example, last weekend, one of my friends in honors took 4 straight swigs of grey goose. dhani jones was in the rc?? HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAA that's awesome.</p>