<p>I’m coming from a pretty competitive high school having taken 8 APs and got a 2150 on the SAT</p>
<p>Bump 10char</p>
<p>Honors classes in subjects like psychology or anthropology are not especially difficult compared to the non-honors versions, but honors math and science classes can fairly difficult. You shouldn’t worry too much about the difficulty–if you got into honors, you can probably handle the difficulty of the honors classes.</p>
<p>Specifically do you know anything about Honors Calculus II? Or chemistry?</p>
<p>My younger brother is in FEH (freshmen engineering honors), and might have taken honors calculus II last semester, although I’m not sure if he placed out of that one and started whatever comes next. He has not struggled too much with any of his honors-level classes, although he spends a great deal of time studying, and is a pretty serious student. </p>
<p>I’m afraid I don’t recall if any of my friends took the honors version of the chem classes.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’m definitely putting in the time to study, I’m just nervous about exactly how difficult I’ll find it</p>
<p>Honors quantum mechanics is the hardest course I’ve ever taken.</p>
<p>I’m in FEH Right now, and one of my classes is Math 2162.02, which is basically an accelerated Calculus II/III course. This is probably the hardest class I’ve taken, or least the one where it’s hardest to earn a decent grade. We started the semester learning about sequences and series. We then went through Taylor Series, polar coordinates, vectors, multivaribles, multiple integration; and right now we’re finishing with vector calculus (Green’s Theorem, Stokes’ Theorem, etc.). The material is hard, but what makes the class especially difficult is that we fly through the content. I got over 100% in 3 of the 4 quarters in my high school AP Calculus AP class, as well as a 5 on the exam; but right now I’m looking at a C (with the curve) for this class unless I really step it up for the midterm 3 and the final. I study a lot, as well.</p>
<p>As for Honors Chemistry, one of my roommates basically said, “If there exists a Hell, it’s probably just one giant honors general chemistry lecture.” I won’t need to take it, so I can’t speak for myself. Some of my friends have stated that it’s like an intro to P Chem class.</p>
<p>Honors engineering is a ton of work, but as long as you do all of the assignments and study, the material isn’t too abstract.</p>
<p>Honors physics is also really difficult (1260 and 1261). It helps to have a good professor.</p>
<p>So basically, I’m going to die… I scored a 4 on the AP calculus AB test last year and haven’t taken chem since honors in 10th grade, and I don’t think they offer honors for any of the other classes I’ll have to take first year</p>
<p>Well if you only took AB and got a 4 or 5, then you’ll take 1161 your first semester (which is honors). The tests are hard, but there’s a pretty good curve. 2162 comes afterwards, and people only take this class their first semester if they did well on the BC exam.</p>
<p>Now, I am worried also. To maintain honors in engineering the OSU web site says:</p>
<p>GPA Requirement: 3.4 CPHR at the end of each Spring quarter; 3.3 at end of first year only and 3.4 at the end of the following Autumn quarter</p>
<p>A fair number of honors engineering freshmen eventually lose their honors status. A 3.4 GPA is pretty high for an engineering major, although not impossible. I believe the average GPA for engineering students as a whole tends to be around a 3.0, or perhaps a little higher.</p>
<p>What makes an honors course different from a regular course is the presence of other honors students. In an honors course, you will (theoretically) be sitting alongside people who actually care about their studies, and you will have professors teaching your class rather than a TA. The professor will therefore pitch the material at a higher level.</p>
<p>Chemistry is just a difficult class in general. There’s an old saying that intro to chemistry makes more English majors than the pleasures of Shakespeare, or something like that. It’s a course meant to weed out the slackers and duds, and that’s a good thing. You certainly don’t want dumb doctors operating on you, or dumb engineers putting your plane in the air.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s fair to have the same GPA requirements for honors and scholarships for all majors. For example, it’s much easier for a psychology major to maintain a high GPA than it is for an engineering major.</p>
<p>Honors status at OSU isn’t that important. If you want your degree to be different, pursue research, and graduate with distinction. A non-honors engineering student (with a 3.0+ GPA) will have better career options and and a higher starting salary than will a honors psychology student. </p>
<p>More important is keeping your grades up to keep any scholarships you might have.</p>
<p>“I don’t think it’s fair to have the same GPA requirements for honors and scholarships for all majors. For example, it’s much easier for a psychology major to maintain a high GPA than it is for an engineering major.”</p>
<p>I don’t understand why engineers and the like always complain about how hard they have it. You chose a difficult major–what did you think it was going to be like? Yeah, it’s going to require more work than “family studies” or education. They don’t call it “rocket science” for nothing. As a pay-off, you will probably have greater job security and a higher starting salary.</p>
<p>I’m taking a few classes as part of PSEO right now at Ohio State and its not really that hard. Also come from a fairly competitive high school (ranked around 100th) and 2300+ SAT. </p>
<p>I’d say honors classes are similar to AP classes at high school. The students around you are fairly smart but not necessarily geniuses. Around 1/3 in the honors classes I’ve took get an A/A- and another third get B’s so it should be easily manageable. It will depend on the class though. For example 1181H math is fairly hard (coming from somebody who used to be top in the state at math) while honors intro economics/business is incredibly easy. </p>
<p>Regular classes are generally filled with average students in your hs minus the bottom third of your hs class. There are much less A’s (for example, gen chem 2 has roughly 5% A’s) but that is due to the weaker pool of students. Again, I didn’t feel like it was too challenging. I have gotten 96% and 100% on midterms with ~65% averages in general chemistry and I’m not that amazing at chemistry.</p>
<p>To stay in honors at the time my son started, you needed to take something like 6 honors classes in the first two years or so. He had no problem with most but enjoyed the math honors classes the least so he dropped out of that track after the first year and out of the physics honors the second year I think. It wasn’t that it was so hard, just very time consuming and he had other opportunities that he wanted to pursue.</p>