For all of you who had taken the Honors L&S program, may I know how much extra courses(per sem?/per year?) you had to take compared to your friends that didn’t take honors? Also, does it make you really busy and have no much free time? I would be happy if you are willing to share your experience and your thoughts.
My son completed the requirements to graduate with “Honors in the Liberal Arts” – it didn’t add to his course load but just meant he had to attentive in his scheduling to make sure he was taking courses which met the requirements. One of the advantages, I think, about L&S Honors is that a student can do as much, or as little, as they choose as a student is still “in” the program even if they only take 1 Honors class. So, for example, a student might decide to only take Honors in their major to take advantage of having the Honors discussion section taught by the professor or to have access to a particular professor by taking a small Honors seminar.
Or, a student can meet the requirements for the Honors in the Liberal Arts, which requires (as best I recall), 6 credits Honors course work in each of 3 areas – Humanities, Social Science and Natural Science, plus 15 credits of Honors-only courses. Honors-only courses means classes which are designated Honors, I think they have an “H” designation in the course list. In contrast, there are Honors “optional” classes (designated with a ! I think, but I would be wrong), where the class itself is not taught as an Honors class but the prof identifies extra work that will qualify for Honors credit. The last way to get Honors credit is to “green sheet” a class – where the student proposes a project etc. and the prof agrees (on a green sheet, I guess), and that is how the student gets Honors credit. I always thought of Honors in the Liberal Arts as demonstrating breadth, through Honors credits in 3 main substantive areas, plus Honors depth, through 15 credits of Honor-only work. Courses at UW are generally 3 or 4 credits, so 6 credits means at least 2 classes, and 15 credits means at least 5 classes.
My kid was a double major, with Honors, and had lots of free time, was active in greek life, led various philanthropic events, played on rec league teams and spent lots of time at the college bars. It was not an obstacle to enjoying all that UW and Madison has to offer.
Son and I got honors degrees from UW- same format plus more activities since my day. You do not do extra courses, you substitute an Honors course or section for the regular one. You take as many or few each semester as you wish. Of course, to get an honors designation for your degree you need to meet your major’s requirements. Sometimes specific courses or just numbers of honors credits (need a B or better to get honors credit, btw).
Read the Honors program info on the UW website. You likely will get more material for your credits. Whether or not it takes you more time depends an your background knowledge and ability to learn. A regular version does not necessarily take less time, btw. And- some people want to be more challenged than others, work harder, get more out of the academics than others. Others would rather be lazy and do just what is needed to graduate. Your choice. You will likely have a mix of honors and regular versions of courses. How much time also depends on the number of credits- 12 required for full time but no extra charges up to 18. Why not take an extra course if you can handle it for the same price? Plus, starting with heavier loads will give you more flexibility in later years.
Also, perhaps implicit in my comments above – Honors in L&S is not some separate group at UW, apart from the “regular” students. My kid liked that he didn’t really know who else was aiming to complete “Honors in the Liberal Arts” – he just took the Honors classes that interested him and sometimes ran into some of the same students. It really was about pursuing deeper engagement for its own sake, not about collecting some kind of special status.
For those really up for a challenge, one can do “Comprehensive Honors” – completing requirements for “Honors in the Liberal Arts” plus Honors in the major. Apparently, in my kid’s graduating class, only 30 out of 6000 L&S graduates completed it that year.
Ditto above- you do Honors for yourself. I did comprehensive eons ago, son in a major. There is flexibility. Starting as a freshman in Honors gives you Honors advising at SOAR and some other perks. An Honors PROGRAM, not a COLLEGE. It works well. You will learn a lot about how things work at UW once you are on campus. A lot to gain, nothing to lose by being in the UW Honors program. Relax and enjoy the rest of your HS career.
An example of the extra work for a regular class with honors addition: attend 4 presentations over the course of a semester and write a paper about each one. I don’t think the papers are graded but need to be decent. If you are a busy student and study a lot, I would say it is a significant extra workload, e.g. 4 x 3 hours for the presentations and 4 x many hours for the papers. Our daughter is enjoying it.
You get out what you put in. More work means more learning- it is not busy work. You decide how much you want to get from your time at UW. Flexible- you can always opt out and not get the Honors of any kind with your degree. It is a great way for top tier students to maximize their education. The details depend on the courses you take- various STEM types or writing intensive ones.