<p>My son is a finance and economics major who will be attending the University of South Carolina. He's been admitted into the honors program. Currently he would be considered a sophmore but with the honors program it requires him to take classes he's exempted from AP credit including 2 sciences 2 englishes and 2 histories. By joining honors he would waste over a semester on taking classes he isn't interested in instead of focusing on what he is actually studying.</p>
<p>Is it worth it for a business major to do the honors program? He plans on working after undergrad and then pursuing an mba. Law school is a minor consideration.</p>
<p>So if he gets, for example, a B+ or higher in one Honors College English course, he could count AP credit in English to the Honors College course requirements.</p>
<p>But that still might require the student to take extra classes that aren’t needed for his major. </p>
<p>I’m surprised the USouth Carolina has this policy. Glad that my kids’ honor college didn’t. They wouldn’t have liked having to take additional history or English classes.</p>
<p>Taking English, history, and science courses is part of EDUCATION, not a “waste” IMHO. Presumably, the Honors program is there to serve kids who are more intellectually inclined than the rest of the university population. If your S is going to college solely for a job credential and finds taking one course in each of these areas an undue burden, then by all means skip the honors program and go straight for the AP credit. (Although you might want to check and make sure that he can get a regular degree without taking a single course in those areas. I tend to doubt it…)</p>
<p>Your son has already been accepted into the Honors college for U of S. Carolina? When did he get that decision? I didn’t realize the decisions had been sent out already. First time thru with all of this and I find this AP/Honorization policy confusing!</p>
<p>Taking English, history, and science courses is part of EDUCATION, not a “waste” IMHO</p>
<p>Nobody is suggesting that those subjects are a waste. What’s being suggested is that a person’s schedule may not allow for duplication or taking additional courses in those subjects.</p>
<p>After taking and testing out of APUSH, APEuro, APWorld, many kids have had more than enough history education.</p>
<p>I prefer the way that my kids’ honors program worked. The student could choose the courses that interested them…challenging, mind-expanding, subjects…some involved current events, some involved research, etc.</p>
<p>My D is beginning a BFA and an Honors College program. In most ways this HC is exactly right for her - separate seminar classes, a “degree” program of sorts, totally separate from the rest of the University. She would love to do both, and get all of the intellectual benefits of the HC classes she can. The good news is she can move in and out of the HC from semester to semester. She does have to complete it all, with a certain GPA, to get the actual degree, but she will benefit from any classes she takes, and they will be on her transcript, even if she doesn’t complete the whole program. We see it as a win-win situation.</p>
<p>Her HC, like this one, requires students to take the HC classes and does not allow extensive credits for APs. I think the situation is similar: either you want the HC and what it offers, or you can take another route.</p>
<p>I think it is a very personal decision, with no “right” answer. My D may end up dropping the HC because her BFA is also very demanding - every year a couple of BFA students try to do both, but hardly any of them manage - or choose - to complete the two programs. There is not only a ton of work in the BFA, but also the HC makes it nearly impossible to “explore” other classes outside of the 2 programs. </p>
<p>In this semester and the next she can’t schedule a first year HC class because it’s only offered opposite her BFA classes; she’s hoping she can fit it in next year, but it has already put her behind. We feel if she drops the HC to do work more extensively in her BFA, or to take electives she otherwise wouldn’t have time for, her education still will have great value.</p>
<p>Again, this is a personal decision, with good reasons either way.</p>
<p>The OP specifically referred to “wasting” a semester of courses. I see nothing about scheduling difficulties.</p>
<p>The honorization policy makes it clear that this student can get at least some AP credits by taking a course in the same OR a related discipline. Judging by the interdisciplinary courses they describe on their web site, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something that has nothing in common with AP courses and is relevant to his interests. </p>
<p>But the honors college seems to have a very specific mission and world view. They also appear to require service learning or study abroad. Maybe it isn’t a fit for this student. Maybe he could find a compromise where he “honorizes” some of his APs but not all. </p>
<p>With so many students entering colleges and universities with AP credit, I’m still surprised that there are honors programs with requirements which operate under the assumption that students aren’t entering college with any college credit.</p>
<p>Common advice on CC is to choose a school that one would be happy at even if it didn’t have a specific program that they were originally interested in. I’m not a fan of retaking courses in which one already has credit, which is why I’m not in a “lock-step” honors program that would have required me to retake lots of courses. While I am now in a honors-type program that has very specific course requirements, those are graduate courses in my major and related disciplines that I wanted to take anyway. It is my view that honors programs should not place unnecessary course requirements on students, but rather offer honors versions of popular courses, but not just the introductory freshman level courses in which many incoming honors students already have credit.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the OP’s son should focus more on getting into special programs related to his major rather than joining the honors program. That said, many schools offer perks to honors students (honors housing, priority registration, etc.) such that it might be beneficial for him to join the honors program, take a few courses that one needs anyway, and leave the honors program later on (note that this wouldn’t work in honors programs that have very specific requirements and timelines for course completion). Some may say that this would be gaming the system, but I see it more as a way for top students who don’t fit the “mold” of [usually] humanities-focused honors programs to get benefits that they deserve despite there not being programs open to incoming freshman that better suit their educational strengths.</p>
<p>Your son needs to investigate the specifics of this honors program. It may offer him something that he wants, but cannot get if he is not in that program. On the other hand, it might not offer anything that is particularly useful to him. </p>
<p>One thing that he does need to ask about is WHICH English, Science and History classes he would be choosing from in the honors program,and whether there is a specific semester by which this series must be completed. If these are classes that he absolutely doesn’t want to take, then he doesn’t want to be in the honors program. Period. If he thinks that they might be fun/useful/interesting, and they can be completed at any time during his four years, that is a different situation entirely.</p>
<p>Unless the goal is for your son to graduate as fast as possible (at which point the Honors College may not be a good plan anyway) I’m a huge fan of business students stretching themselves in different subjects. From what you wrote, he’s not being asked to retake classes he’s already got AP credit for, so he presumably has some choice of what advanced classes he’ll take. All business, all the time, makes for a pretty boring job candidate, imo. And I’m hard pressed to think of a student who would not benefit from more English. </p>
<p>H’s engineering school required a minor outside the School of Engineering, and H chose Folklore, which certainly sounds way out there. But, it enriched his life greatly, and did not hurt in the least when he was involved in computer game design. Ditto on the Economics class he took. </p>
<p>From an employment perspective, you never know where additional coursework outside your major field may either provide incredibly useful background knowledge, or at a minimum something interesting to talk about during interviews. </p>
<p>And doesn’t S.C. have a fabulous international business program? I’d think that if a student could choose history courses on recent European or Asian history that it could only be beneficial in supporting future business studies that could involve those regions.</p>