<p>Has anyone taken lower division honors sections? </p>
<p>What were your experiences? </p>
<p>How many would you take at a time? </p>
<p>Does taking these sections help make the class easier to get a good grade or just increase the work load? </p>
<p>Any honors classes or professors that you can recommend?</p>
<p>Has being in the honors program been a significant benefit?</p>
<p>Did you get your 1st housing choice as a freshman and sophomore as advertised?</p>
<p>I am finishing my first year at UCSB and am in the Letters and Science Honors Program. Overall, my expericence with the program has been great. It gives you the opportunity to interact with the professors on a face to face level, which is quite an accomplishment considering some of my classes had 800+ students. I wouldn't take more then 1 honors class at a time especially your first year. The program only requires you to take 2 honors classes a year, so there is never a rush with 3 quarters. Taking an honors section can help make the material easier to understand, but sometimes the honors section has little to do with the class material. In one section for example we did an outside research project with only a loose emphasis on the theme of the class. I would recommend Professor Graves and Environmental Studies 3 if you ever have the chance. He is the coolest guy ever and the honors section is extremely easy and borders on fun. The benefits included with being part of the Honors Program include: early class registration (by far the best perk), honors study hall, and a few others that are not too important. And finally, to answer your last question, yes I did my first choice of housing both freshman and sophomore years. (Anacapa and San Rafael). I hope this helps!!!!!!</p>
<p>hey eanicich,</p>
<p>Are the honors classes significantly more difficult? For those of us applying to grad school, it would suck to get a B or C in an honors class that would otherwise be an A.
Thanks</p>
<p>Typically the honors section has no relation to your grade for the overall class. Often it is a separate "class" for like 1 unit usually. You still have to attend a normal section where you will be graded by the normal TA (your grade for the class), whereas the honors section is like an added bonus. That is just from my experience though, I think there are other honors sections where it replaces the noraml section, in which case your are graded. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Yeah that definitely helps.</p>
<p>So basically you go to lecture and section like everyone else; however, there is a second 1unit lecture for honors kids?</p>
<p>That seems pretty easy then. I thought the entire lecture was honors and curved, which would suck.</p>
<p>No. There is just one lecture with all the students (both honors and regular) which can sometimes be hundreds of students and then everyone has a normal section which may include both honors and regular students and then for the honors students only there is an extra section that meets with the professor instead of a TA which is only for honors students and sometimes you are given 1 unit for completing them.</p>
<p>Duh, that's cool then. So not much more effort is put into the honors system? Seems kinda weird. That's pretty cool that you just get to talk to your Prof or whatever, hehe</p>
<p>yeah it is really just to get a little more exposure to a particular subject with a little more work. It also helps in getting letters of recommendation from professors that you otherwise would never have gotten the opportunity to speak with.</p>