<p>How difficult is the honors program in terms of biopsychology and other freshman required courses? I heard somewhere that 66% of students drop out of the UCLA honors program and this has started to worry me. </p>
<p>I'm just wondering if it's worth doing the honors program or not, because I want to maintain a good GPA as well.</p>
<p>thank you.</p>
<p>IMO, the reason a lot of people drop is just because later on they reprioritize, or they don't want to try to meet the basic requirements, or they want to pursue a different kind of honors.
i think the best perks of the program kick in freshman/soph year, and after that, different people have different priorities.
it's not that the honors program itself is so challenging that only 1/3 can finish it: it's just that yes, there are extra requirements, and no, not everyone decides to stick with it.</p>
<p>it is DEFINITELY worth starting out with the honors program. you have absolutely nothing to lose, and stand to gain quite a bit. my favorite part about honors is the honors collegium course that i took winter quarter ("language as a window to the mind"). granted, you don't need to be IN honors to take these courses, but being in the program does force you to take classes outside of your major that will challenge you in different ways. </p>
<p>as a freshman, the best way to combine the 8 honors units you need by the end of spring quarter with the rest of your required courses is to take a GE cluster. everyone gets 15 units of GEs, writing II and the seminar requirement, but with a B or better, honors students get 15 units of honors units as well. so you don't need to worry about taking any extra classes.</p>
<p>sophomore year, you can add honors sections to regular classes (comm 10, stats 10, etc). if the class doesn't offer it, you can negotiate honors contracts with the professor. also, you'll need to take honors collegium courses, which can be mind-opening (think fiat luxes but for 4 or 5 units, not 1). so, sometimes your courses will overlap, and sometimes they won't, but it's not as if the honors program requires a whole second curriculum.</p>
<p>also, as far as GPA, the idea is to foster a high GPA through challenging yet personalized classes- not to sabotage it. true, it's more work, but if it's rewarding to you, you'll succeed. some people may find that the program is not the best fit for them, and will drop out.
but the only way to know is to try it! :)</p>
<p>I'm an honors student. I won't be graduating with honors (.005 grade points short, due in no way to my honors classes). </p>
<p>After much reflection, I've reconciled that even though I won't be receiving honors notation upon graduation, I still got priority registration every quarter (a major commodity at UCLA) and took some cool classes with awesome professors that I wouldn't have taken otherwise. So for me, it was worth it.</p>
<p>The level of difficulty in honors classes really isn't much (if any) higher than in a non-honors class. </p>
<p>I say try honors, see if you like it, see if you can maintain a good gpa and then decide from there. I think you'll be surprised.</p>
<p>thank you for your input liyana and allie, i've decided to man up and take honors</p>
<p>good for you!
i hope it will be an enjoyable experience for you :D</p>