<p>I can’t offer much information (only in my freshman year & not a part of it) but I can offer my perspective on it from people that I know who are in it (and a bit of personal experience)!</p>
<p>Note that CMU tries to limit the program to ~20 students per entering class, so this is actually a great opportunity. HSP students participate in a capstone project in their fourth year, which is essentially a research project. This would look great on a resume, no doubt. </p>
<p>I don’t think HSP people get priority registration, but I could be wrong on that. To me, most of the benefit lies in the opportunity to go deeper into a particular, specific topic. If you look at the seminars that were offered in the past, you’ll see what I mean.</p>
<p>Plus, there looks like some pretty cool activities that goes on: [Extracurricular</a> activities | Humanities Scholars Program, Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.hss.cmu.edu/hsp/activities.html]Extracurricular”>http://www.hss.cmu.edu/hsp/activities.html)</p>
<p>By mistake, I am in one of the HSP seminar classes. This/last semester, it’s called the Social Impact of War and it’s taught by Tim Haggerty who is, well, the current director of the Humanities Scholars program.</p>
<p>[Timothy</a> Haggerty - Department of History - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“Home - Department of History - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University”>Home - Department of History - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University)</p>
<p>He is an absolutely amazing professor. It would be great to have him as an advisor because he’s so quick-witted, and he doesn’t believe in the whole “tip toe and try to avoid offending people” thing. This really helps when it comes to debates. Additionally, he’s very insightful and knowledgeable about history and lectures about it in a very interesting way that actually makes you want to listen. The feedback that he gives on your work is quite detailed as well.</p>
<p>The work in his seminar is quite a lot, though D;. There’s so much reading and writing. We’ve written five papers so far in this class and we’re only 1-2 weeks past midsemester. The longest one was 7-8 pages, but normally they’re around 5 pages. You typically get a week to write them. I would think that other seminars would have a similar amount of work (it IS supposed to be honors-ish, anyway unless it’s just him who makes you work hard) However, it is SO worth it if you really like intellectual topics in academia because wow, these topics are really fascinating and make you consider topics in a perspective that you’ve never thought about before @__@.</p>
<p>There’s not a lot of ratings about him, but here’s ratemyprofessor: [TimothyHaggerty</a> - Carnegie Mellon University - RateMyProfessors.com](<a href=“http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1048732]TimothyHaggerty”>Timothy Haggerty at Carnegie Mellon University | Rate My Professors)</p>
<p>Overall, if you choose to attend CMU and be part of HSS, I see no reason why you wouldn’t choose to be part of it. Knowing what I do now, I would accept if I were offered the opportunity :D</p>