<p>I've heard LSA honors is a lot of work.
I've also heard that Medical schools look for high gpa's for their students.</p>
<p>Accordingly what are the benefits of doing LSA honors and is it worth it for a pre-med student as in would doing honors equal the differance in the amount of work for medical school admissions? </p>
<p>Thanks guys</p>
<p>Interesting question.</p>
<p>Honors is not a lot of work DOC, and you're right, med schools look for high GPA's, which is another rason to do honors cuz grades in honors tend to be a bit inflated. Honors is great prep for pre-med.</p>
<p>Question:
if I do honors, do I have to live in honors housing?</p>
<p>Not at all, but it's a pretty sweet deal if I may say so myself. I realize you probably got an offer for shipman housing as well. Some shipman kids live on the honors floors instead of shipman housing so they can be with the kids in their classes more, and those who dont usually still hang out with us down on the honors floors. Either way, south quad is sweet, and unless you have a really good friend you want to room with elsewhere, honors housing is a great option.</p>
<p>another couple of questions:
do most shipman students choose to take part in the honors program? </p>
<p>Is there any reason not to choose the honors program if given the option?</p>
<p>As far as shipman people go, I'd say its half honors, half not. A big reason is because not everyone who gets shipman is in LSA. Many do art, kinesiology, music, or engineering. So of the LSA students, i'd say 75% or so choose to do honors. I can't think of any good reasons not to do honors. In my experience, honors has been awesome in every way here. The only drawback is if you hate ancient literature and want to avoid Great Books at all costs I guess. Otherwise, the housing, the community, the smaller and more involved classes, and the cool little honors events make it a very worthwhile program IMO.</p>
<p>What are the people like in Honors? Are they real upbeat? Really geeky? Straight edged? Just like everybody else?</p>
<p>Although there is a higher percentage of geeky kids in honors than the rest of the campus, the vast majority of honors kids are just like everybody else, except that they tend to be more intellectually challenging and see you as a peer rather than "the smart kid". It's aweseome to have community like that after being "the smart kid" for every year of your life prior. Otherwise we're just like everyone else I'd say.</p>
<p>Honors does provide a fabulous sense of community that will extend throughout your college career. However, honors advising is horrible. Steer clear.</p>
<p>MichWoman, I've read and responded to your comments before. Honors Advising...do they bully you into taking certain classes? Is it a good idea to take your AP credit and go or to retake those classes, especially pre-med? Any advice you can give on how to 'steer clear' of the advising system would be most helpful.</p>
<p>LOL, my problem is so ironic. I went to my Honors advisor and when I told her I was considering a career in the biomedical sciences, she told me to take a linguistics course. I just stared for a minute and asked her why. She said "Oh, you have such high verbal scores!" Never mind that I told her my interest in science five minutes earlier. </p>
<p>The big problem in Honors is that there seems to be an antiquated idea of education that seems to guide the counselors in their advising. They are nostalgic for some liberal arts education paradigm from the 1920's where only the very rich could go to college, so degree utility was not an issue. They also seem to think that U of M's Honors College is enough of a stamp sp that you shouldn't worry about showing depth in one subject or acquiring coursework for graduate school. Nope, not really. We're in Angell Hall, not Harvard Yard, and even those kids have trouble finding jobs this century. Therefore dabbling around through an undergrad is their method for acquiring a liberal arts education. Never mind that most people want to graduate in four years and actually, ahem, have some focus in their coursework. They constantly try to force people to take classes that they are not interested in because "everyone should read Shakespeare" or "you might find medieval French history interesting." In short, they never want to assist you with your own plans. They have their own plans for you based on their assumptions and vested interests and will shove them down your throat unless you fight back.</p>
<p>Now if you do come to them with woes of classes you chose, watch out! One honors counselor is known throughout the college for making students cry. They will just rub it in your face that you didn't take the suggested Medieval French History class. </p>
<p>There is also a lot of favoritism in the honors office. I don't want to spread rumors all over CC but honors counselors are notorious for only really helping students that have been very vocal in ther praise of honors and honors counselors. ("Sucking up" is such a damnable phrase). I also can verify incidents where counselors have gossiped with favored students about other students' academic and personal issues. They're very unprofessional people and it's kind of scary when they have a good deal of your personal and all of your academic information on file.</p>
<p>How do you avoid pitfalls in Honors? Don't let them push you around. Remain steadfast in your decisions. Use concentration advising as much as possible when choosing courses. Honors also tells people never to withdraw from classes if they're doing poorly. Trust your own judgment here! Withdraw if you need to. I've seen a number of people screwed by D's in classes because of Honors telling them not to drop. If you're interested in trying for nationally competitive scholarships like the Rhodes, Marshall, Churchill, etc., make sure you stay in touch with Honors because the LS&A director of scholarship nominations is an honors counselor. Stop by the office every couple of months, chat pleasantly about your studies and let all advice go out of one ear. Honors will then be more likely to help you as they do the favored kids of honors. They do have the power to do things like move you off of long waitlists, write you out of many pre-reqs and get you late withdraws with no penalty aside from W's-but they only do things for people whom they like. Maintain a relationship with honors but don't let them advise you. </p>
<p>In short, they're a bunch of self-satisfied academic lightweights who seek ingratiation and flattery but can't get it in the academic world so they seek it through college students. Once you recognize them for what they are, tool them for all they're worth. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Also, take all the AP credit they give you. Just don't jump into orgo or intermediate micro unless you're ready to work really hard your freshman year. Those classes require not only intelligence but very smart studying, so make sure to take them when you know you can succeed.</p>
<p>That's really great advice. Thank you so much, I am sure it will come in very handy!</p>
<p>I totally agree with Michwoman when it comes to advising. Honors advisors don't know what your field is like or what it requires. They often bring in their own previous biases toward a certain field of study, and they treat you as a "general person" rather than an individual. I knew I wanted to study math and economics upon coming here, but my counselor told me my focus was too narrow and that maybe i should do other things. He was clearly unfamiliar with how focused one has to be to complete an honors math degree here and to be a solid graduate candidate. They often only know the surface aspects of classes and counseling and dance around the difficult questions. People in my hall come to me for advising because the advisors suck. You guys can come to me too if you want. Truth be told, concentration advisors are best, but even they tend to be biased toward classes of their own special field of study. You're best off researching the course guide, requirements, and concentration options yourself, or talking to someone else who has (like me). </p>
<p>I disagree with Michwoman's second post, however. First of all, if you have over 60 AP credits coming in, you definitely shouldn't accept all the AP credit they give you. In fact, you can only transfer in 60 credits, so they limit you. In that case, take only the stuff that will get you ahead. But remember that the more AP credits you have, the earlier you schedule, so usually it's the more, the merrier. Plus, I know plenty of people who went straight into Econ 401 and honors organic chemistry and cruised through with A's without having to study. It all depends on what level you're at. I've seen too many people settle for less and go unchallenged because they listened to the counselor that said Honors orgo and econ 401 were too much to handle their first semester freshman year while kids of similar intellect are challenging themselves and growing tremendously through those courses.</p>