Honors Program Higlights

<p>My S just got an email informing him about his admission to the Honors program. While he is excited, we were thinking through what the advantages over the regular Engineering program are.</p>

<p>We understand the interdisciplinary aspects of the program. I see he has to take 2 core honors courses and 3 special honors courses to complete the program. I have seen other schools advertise that the honors programs allow the students to enroll in courses upto 2 weeks earlier, but I didn't see that anywhere @GT. Is this not needed at GT i.e everyone gets what they want? Any current Honors that can comment on this? Would really appreciate it.</p>

<p>Apart from the smaller class size / possibly better professors for those 5 courses, any other pluses we are missing?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Hi. As a brief background, I am a first year student at Georgia Tech in the honors program. I came to Georgia Tech as a Chemical Engineer and I quickly changed to the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (simply because it appealed to me more than engineering). In my experience, the benefits to the honors program are few and far between and depend on many different aspects. For my part, it has been a very negative experience. I came to Georgia Tech with 21 hours, many of my core classes were completed. Therefore, for my two core classes, I would have had to take classes like physics, computer science (for engineers) or calculus 2. I need none of these classes for my major. But, assuming that your son is an engineer, I’m sure he is interested as to if these classes are smaller with better instructors. Generally, from what I have heard from my roommate and other friends, this is not the case. For example, the calculus 2 class is a completely different class from normal Calc 2 classes. (I did take regular calc 2). Honors Program Calc 2 is very much theory and proof based. This makes the class much more difficult. For computer science, the class is the exact same as people who are not in the honors program. In fact, you are in the exact same lecture as everyone else. The only difference is that at the end of the class, you have an extra project o do (which I have heard is easier, but I have no clue). For classes like physics, I have heard of no difference. People, correct me if I am wrong. Since I don’t need any of my core classes, my honors adviser told me to take 5 special topic classes. 5 classes at Georgia Tech (in many cases) equals a minor. Also, these hours count towards HOPE hours, so you will end up paying more after HOPE is used up. Now, are some of these classes very cool, yes. But is it worth working it into your schedule to use as free elective credits when you might want to minor in something, that is for you to decide. It wasn’t for me.</p>

<p>You do not get to enroll any earlier than anyone else. Your time ticket is the exact same as everyone else. If you go to the FASET where there is an honors luncheon, you eat lunch, people talk to you and then you register. However, this was not at all FASET’s last year. And this meant that you registered with everyone else. </p>

<p>The only benefit that I have found is that we get to live in Matheson and Perry (the same as non Honors kids as well), but our housing was guaranteed. These dorms were very good and clean. We didn’t have to deal with the bad showers of Glenn/Towers. </p>

<p>There is some prestige associated with the honors program, but the program is simply so new that I don’t think it’s much different from getting a degree from Tech. It is already prestigious.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>rwreck1993, Thank you very much for your insight, very helpful. I have seen some other posts from years ago that outlined experiences similar to yours on the honors classes. I can see where it would have been painful for you since you didn’t need the core classes. </p>

<p>Thank you very much again for sharing your views. It is confirming our fears that it may be a lot of trouble for nothing (more) tangible. </p>

<p>Good luck with your studies at GT.</p>