<p>Hi all. My son will be starting in the Honors College in Fall 2011 and I was wondering if anyone can tell me what the Honors classes are like. The only info we have so far is from reading some posts and what the school has on the website. We will be going to Scholar's Day in a couple weeks to get more info and to actually see it but I was hoping that a current student could give us some info such as the level of intensity compared to the other classes and which pre-req's are better to take at the honors level. He already has credit for ENC1101 and 1102 and MAC1105, PSY2012 and is currently planning to major in Psychology (open minded for other majors). He is also hoping to live in the Libra L-shape as he will not be there for summer. Any thoughts on that? Thanks for any info.</p>
<p>If you search “Burnett” in the UCF thread, you will find several posts on the honors college these past few years. My s is graduating this spring with a B.A. in Economics from the Burnett Honors College. He took all the required classes, and, in fact, took one additional one that he didn’t need. He enjoyed most of the classes. There were a couple of teachers that he really disliked. For example, his speech teacher was terrible and pretty much informed the class within the first week that he didn’t want to be there. S put that information into the exit survey Burnett asks students to fill out when they are graduating. However, that teacher was an anomoly. For the most part he enjoyed his honors classes and the amount of work he did was not particularly more difficult or greater in amount than an AP class in high school. Obviously, each class depended on the teacher and the subject. He loved priority scheduling. After orientation where he got into every class he wanted at the time he wanted, he was able to schedule two semesters at a time. Truly a phenomenal deal! Honors advising was some of the best he got at the university. Whenever he had difficulty with something related to advising, he saw rex, and he did his magic and helped get things fixed. 
</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>Thanks zebes. You must be a pro at this now My son is starting to look ahead at the pre-req’s he has to take and since he did a lot of them in high school he was trying to decide if he should lighten his load the first semester and take 4 classes instead of 5 or try to get them all knocked out quick so he can move on to his major course work. Also, did your son prefer honors level classes or the interdisciplinary seminars? It sounds like the seminars would be much more interesting.</p>
<p>ucfmom, </p>
<p>S took 14 hours his first semester (4 classes (2 of which were honors) + honors symposium). They encouraged the students to not go crazy that first semester in order to get acclimated to college. And like your son, he had a huge amount of gen eds already completed because of high school AP credit. In fact, S could have graduated in three years, but we slowed him down knowing he wanted to attend law school. So, he didn’t kill himself (averaging 14 hours/semester) and worked 40 hours/week while in school. He just got accepted into UF’s law school yesterday, so happy dancin’s going on around here. Anyway, I think he did like the seminars better than the classes. One of the ones he really enjoyed, believe it or not, was rocket rhetoric. The teacher’s very passionate on the subject and made the class quite interesting. There were a couple of classes (seminars) he would have liked to have taken, but the senior honors kids always grabbed them before he could. And then when he was a senior … he forgot to register the first several days he could and still missed out. LOL Oh well, it wasn’t their fault. :)</p>
<p>Zebes, proud mom of a future KNATOR (Knight who becomes a Gator) haha</p>
<p>Congratulations zebes! That is so awesome on your son getting into UF law school
I figured the 4 classes would be a good place to start and go from there. I’d like to see him get a job just for some extra spending money since I won’t be there for him to panhandle from…lol This is my first one going off to college and although I’m sure he’ll be fine, I feel better the more info I have. I appreciate your input and hope you guys have an awesome family celebration!</p>
<p>ucfmom11, would you mind telling me what SAT/ACT score your son had? Or what credentials he had in general? I’m hoping to get into the Honors College.</p>
<p>He has a 1350/2060 SAT score and a 5.46 GPA. He has played Varsity Baseball for 4 years and he had 75+ hours community service. He also did a lot of different clubs in high school but did not have government or council. Good luck to you. We’re really excited about the Honors program. Going to Scholar’s Day on the 26th just to get some more info. Anybody else going?</p>
<p>I’m a UCF and Honors College alum! </p>
<p>Unlike high school, the Honors College classes are NOT more difficult, rigorous, or advanced than the same class that is not an honors class. The only difference is the class size and how the professor presents the material. My honors classes were usually 10-20 people. </p>
<p>In the classes, professors encouraged discussion and participation from each student. This is different from a non-honors class, where discussion is typically minimal and it’s more lecturing. Because of the small size students got more individual attention. For example, if a concept is not understood by 10 of the 20 students, the professor would immediately recognize this and revisit the topic. This is different from the same 10 students out of 300 students not understanding. </p>
<p>I really enjoyed my honors classes. The professors were- for the most part- friendly and very interested in our understanding of the material. The classes were fun and I got to know my classmates well. I also enjoyed being in the (very nice) honors college building for the classes. Although I did not live on-campus at all, many of my honors friends lived in the Honors building together and found that an additional advantage for when they wanted to study or do homework together. </p>
<p>I hope this gives you a better understanding of what to expect out of the honors classes!</p>
<p>@faith4keep----thanks for the review, I have a question regarding honors classes. Are all the GEP honors classes or just some of them. My son is very interested in the honors college(even though he is no where near ready to apply for college and my big concern with UCF is that I heard some of GEP classes have 400+ students and I know my son would get lost in any class like that so would he be able to take all honors classes for the GEP or would he have to take some of those huge classes as well.</p>
<p>Faith4keep…thanks for the info. That was one of the things I was curious about (the intensity of the classes). He was thinking that the ones that require the most instruction are the ones that are better off as honors since the interaction would be greater and it would make it easier to understand. He has to take the symposium the first semester and then he’s unsure if he’s going to take 3 or 4 more classes. He’ll know more after we go there in a couple weeks and get some more info. Thanks :)</p>
<p>I don’t want to throw the word “all” out there, but most / many of the GEP classes are offered in the honors setting. </p>
<p>Honors students can only take 2 classes in Honors each semester, in addition to the first-semester Symposium class. This is to keep the class size small (if there are 500 honors freshman, they can’t all be in the same honors English class together if class sizes are 10-20!) and also, I think the BHC staff does want the honors student to experience what an average GEP class looks like. Attending a 300 person GEP class definitely made me appreciate honors classes more. Students MUST take English 1 & 2 (ENC1101H / ENC1102H) in Honors as a requirement of the Honors College, so unless they are coming in with credit for those classes that is 1 of the 2 honors classes for the semester.</p>
<p>So besides English, when you pick your two honors classes / semester, you use the same consideration you would for other classes. Does this professor have a reputation for being too difficult / too easy? Is this class at a time that works with my schedule? </p>
<p>The only other thing thrown into the mix is, is this a subject I think I’ll need more attention in? For example, I took my first 2 levels of Calculus classes in Honors because I thought I’d like the individual attention. Then later on I decided to take my Speech class in honors because I’d definitely get more feedback from my professor and have the opportunity to get more instruction and give more speeches-- GEP speech classes tend to be way less instruction since there has to be time built in the semester for a hundred students to give 7 minute speeches. </p>
<p>@Ucfmom11 - Symposium is not a rigorous course. It’s actually only 1 credit hour (it may be 2 now, I can’t remember). Anyway, it is largely sitting in a room once a week listening to interdisciplinary lectures and then discussing the lectures in small groups afterward. There is very little, if any, required studying. There are definitely no exams. Anyway - 3 classes + Symposium would only be 10 credit hours, which is not a full time load. I’d recommend 4 classes + Symposium (13 credit hours).</p>
<p>Thanks for the additional info faith4keep
also one more question did you feel pressure or difficulty in maintaing the 3.2 gpa</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info Faith4keep…I actually didn’t know the symposium was only 2 credits. (I looked it up…it’s 2 now) apparently there is a lecture 1 day and a “lab” the other day. So 4 other classes it is My son already has a lot of pre-req’s out of the way so he went on and put some classes in his shopping cart till he meets with his advisor. Here is his prelim schedule: Fall 2011
Mon BSC1005 (Biology) 10:30-11:30 with B. Vajravelu
Astronomy Honors 12:30-1:30
Symposium 4:30-6:50 Martin Dupuis</p>
<p>Tues: 12:30-2:30 Symposium Lab
3-4:15 Economics Honors with D.Scrogin
His mixed mode communications class would probably be this day as well on web but its only listed as Thurs.</p>
<p>Wed: 10:30-11:20 Biology
12:30-1:30 Astronomy Honors</p>
<p>Thurs: 9-10:15 Communications (COM1000) K.Workman
3-4:15 Economics Honors</p>
<p>Fri: 10:30-11:20 Biology
12:30-1:20 Astronomy</p>
<p>Then in the spring (since he can enroll ahead) he was planning:
Mon: 10:30-11:20 mixed mode American History with Crepeau
4:30-5:45 Sta2023H Honors Statistics with D. Worcester</p>
<p>Tues: 1:30-2:45 Philosophy Honors with Stanlick
3-4:15 Enjoyment of Music (also available completely online)</p>
<p>Wed: 10:30-11:20 History
4:30-5:45 Honors Statistics</p>
<p>Thurs: 9:30-10:20 Math Lab
1:30-2:45 Philosophy Honors
3-4:15 Music</p>
<p>Friday-nothing scheduled but looking into taking an elective somewhere in the mix. This would fulfill all of his honors obligations as well as all or most of his pre-reqs and he could then move on to things of more interest.
What is your opinion of the schedule and any professors you’ve had? He checked ratemy professor.com and so far his choices seem pretty good. I too am curious if the 3.2 was hard to maintain. Thanks for your input :)</p>
<p>Can’t comment on the astronomy class, but S has had scrogins more than once. S is an economics major, and he really likes scrogins. In fact, after having him for econometrics, S asked scrogins to write him a rec letter for fsu and uf law school. S was accepted to both. :)</p>
<p>Thanks Zebes. It helps when you hear from people who have real experience with this
Hopefully when he meets with his advisor, this schedule will work for him. It seems to be ok…</p>
<p>I never felt pressure maintaining the 3.2 GPA. Even if you had an “off” semester, or a semester with some particularly difficult classes, they give you an additional semester to get back up to par. </p>
<p>Some of you parents (with kids that have 5.xx gpas) will have to revert back to your thinking on a 4.0 scale. Bs really do mean a 3.0 gets averaged in!</p>