<p>Just wondering; is honors housing required for all honors program (freshmen) students? Does anyone know if it is completely devoid of all fun or not (to be frank :P)?</p>
<p>Also, what are the benefits of being in the honors program, aside from smaller more individualized "honors" classes? Is the courseload difficult or manageable, and would a student be able to maintain a good balance of social life/academics?</p>
<p>No, it's not required of all honors students. I personally am an honors freshman living in honors housing, but I know plenty of honors kids in the other dorms. And it's not devoid of fun! It's not Thurston, but there are usually parties going on in Lafayette, and I feel like I've made some really close friends in the building that I couldn't have made otherwise. But then again, I'm not a really big partier, if you're into the every-night kind of thing, you might be happier in Thurston.</p>
<p>The honors program, right now, is a mess in regards to structure and organization, since they totally revamped everything this year (why, I don't know), and the administration is a real pain in the butt. However, I enjoy it because of the close relationships you get with the professors that, again, you don't really get in other classes, even in smaller non-honors classes. The coursework is, in my experience, more involved than in other classes, but not all that much harder. A social life/academics balance is pretty possible, I and most of the people I know manage it :)</p>
<p>do you know anything about science in the honors program? is it easier to work with professors on their research?</p>
<p>I'm not a science major, so I don't really know all that much about the specifics, like if it's easy to work with professors on their research, but I know that the honors program is mainly humanities based this year--a lot of the science kids are kind of annoyed about that. Hopefully they'll do something about it next year.</p>
<p>D is not in honors and is a science major. She was put into a science scholar program her freshman year (that no longer exists) instead of honors...and she was rather annoyed at the time. However, she is quite glad now as she feels the honors requirements would have restricted her ability to take courses that she wanted (as opposed to needed). She'll be a senior and will have the chance to do some grad courses next year. She researched in a forensics lab sophomore year, had an REU summer between soph. and junior year...and has been in a chem lab all of this year, will summer there and senior year as well. There are research grants available to students for summer research with faculty (Gamow and Luther Rice fellowships) as well as some from individual depts. We learned of these fellowships during freshman orientation. It will be up to you to develop relationships with professors, learn about their research and arrange to be part of their labs as well as apply for the research grant opportunities. Her professors have been extraordinarily helpful in guiding her with applications, advice and letters of recommendation. She will also seek to graduate with honors from her department (which is different than graduating through the Honors Program).</p>