Honors program

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tulane University
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<p>Our daughter was accepted into the Honors program. We were not able to attend Honors Weekend but attended Destination Tulane this past Monday. We loved the school and our D decided this was the place she wanted to go.</p>

<p>We did meet with an Advisor regarding pre-registering for classes for the fall. She decided to register for one of the Colloqiua which seemed very interesting. We had a few further questions that some of the Tulane veterans may be able to answer:</p>

<p>She was interested in taking an intro psychology class which offers an honors section as well as regular sections. Is there any reason NOT to to enroll in the honors section if available? is the workload any greater? Is there more competition in the honors sections? Is the grading any harder? Or, is it all always better to take the honors section? (better profs, smaller classes, more interaction between students..).</p>

<p>Also regarding dorm selection, our D is concerned that picking the honors dorm will shut her our from a lot of the social life on campus. It seems the administration is pushing honors students towards Butler. Is Butler a "boring" dorm? Our D is not a heavy partying type at all but still wants to have fun and make friends. Wall seems to be an interesting option, but again is it a very quiet dorm with mostly programmed activities? </p>

<p>As parents we are worried that if she picks one of the more active dorms that her academics may suffer but we don't to be overly strict either. I understand that in some of the dorms the study halls also serve as social halls. Do the students go the library to study in those situations? Can they still form study groups?</p>

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<p>Congrats on joining the Tulane family! Just always curious, where else was she seriously considering?</p>

<p>Here is my take on your questions, some of it reflects the thoughts of my D (who is Honors Program, in Butler, taking the Colloquium course) who gave me input:</p>

<p>Taking the honors section of a course is always a good idea if it fits her schedule. Especially for an intro psych class it will be much smaller, more amenable to discussion, and probably will have just that little extra something because most if not all of the other students will be in the Honors Program. The workload in most cases is not much greater than a regular section if at all, but the pace is often a bit quicker and so you cover more material. But it wouldn’t be completely unusual for the professor to assign maybe one extra paper because it is honors, or maybe one extra reading assignment to be discussed. Something like that. It really varies with the professor. FYI, the Honors Colloquium course involves a LOT of reading, and my D has completely enjoyed it.</p>

<p>Being in Butler absolutely doesn’t “shut her out” of anything, but there is no question that there might be fewer spontaneous parties and the like. But my D assures you that it is very social, while being quieter when you really want quieter. She is absolutely not bored. Nice people make friends from all dorms, and Tulane is compact enough, as you saw, that it is extremely easy to get together at any time. As others have posted on here, Wall people similarly get very involved in the whole residential college program, but at the same time have friends from Sharp/Monroe (the “party dorms”) and Butler and all the others. Even in if she were in Sharp or Monroe, while it is easy to get carried along on the tide of events, it is still more about the individual student and how much they do or don’t want to get involved in activities, whatever those activities may be. A little proactiveness goes a long long way. To get back to the heart of your question, Sharp and Monroe can get pretty crazy and she would have no conrtol over that. For the really serious student that is taking a lot of challenging courses that involve a lot of reading, papers, etc. it is probably better to pick a quieter dorm and just make sure to get involved for outside activities, parties, etc.</p>

<p>As far as the study lounges, my D tells me they are occassionally used for study groups and the like, but mostly for individual studying kids do that in their room or the library or if it is nice out just find a quiet spot on the Academic Quad side of the campus and sit under a tree or out on a blanket. But there are lots of kids that do form study groups as well and depending on the size of the group they meet in a lounge, in a classroom that is empty, or even reserve a room in the LBC or a conference room in another building. That is not usually a problem if they do a minimal amount of planning.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info. Our D was also considering Boston College and Vanderbilt. In the end what sold her most was that the students at Tulane seemed the happiest. She was very impressed about how approachable and friendly the professors were. She also liked the entire New Orleans cultural vibe. She is considering double majoring in Political Economy and Dance.</p>

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<p>Oh, that’s cool. What an interesting combination. Best of luck to her.</p>

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<p>We are having the same thoughts, CellarDweller after visiting DT yesterday. Some of the girls we spoke to were considering Sharp/Monroe but my daughter qualifies for Butler and likes the idea of being around students with similar goals but doesn’t want to miss out on the “fun” side of things. I will send a PM and maybe they can talk.</p>

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<p>More honors program questions…
My D looked over the chem e course plan and it doesn’t look like there is anywhere to fit in honors classes. I know a student can possibly arrange for a regular class to be taken as an honors class, but not sure exactly how this is done. It appears that a chem e honors student wouldn’t end up doing any honors classes with other honors students. </p>

<p>D would like to take a foreign language, do study abroad, internship/research opportunities, etc. We noticed that there is very little room for any electives in chem e, the TIDES specifies “engineering TIDES” even. So is chem e, or another engineering major, even possible for an honors student? Do they have any room for anything but engineering?</p>

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<p>I know engineering, like architecture, has a lot of requirements. I also know there are a number of engineering students in the Honors Program. What I don’t know are the details of how they reconcile these two things. I recommend talking to Dr. Luongo about this. He is very nice, very responsive, and will be totally familiar with this question. Let us know what he says, if you don’t mind. It will be useful for others in the same situation now and in the future.</p>

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<p>My D talked with an advisor and got some answers. It looks like a chem e major has to take some of the regularly scheduled classes as honors classes, so she would be taking honors physics probably (apparently there is no honors section of chemistry or calculus). The little bit of space there is for electives would be where her foreign language would fit, although that would probably have to wait until sophomore year. </p>

<p>The advisor didn’t know if the TIDES has to be engineering related, she’s going to get back to D on that. There is apparently some possibilities with engineering study abroad, although it sounds like there might be fewer locations for that, not sure. </p>

<p>If we come up with more info, I’ll post it. Thanks for your help!</p>

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<p>Unless they changed this in the past year, you do not need to sign up for the engineering tides if you’re majoring in engineering. I didn’t and it was fine.</p>

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<p>Thanks, ellie, that’s good to know.</p>