A follow up to an earlier thread about being a girl at Mines. I got an email invite to apply for the Thorson First Year Honors Program. Does anyone have any insight or opinion regarding the honors program at Mines? Is it just more work are their tangible advantages and benefits? Thanks.
Hey @cotopaxi!
Congrats on getting an invite to the FYH program! I am currently a freshman in the program at Mines now, so I can definitely give you some insights.
Right off the bat, I should establish that this isn’t an honors program in the typical ‘high school’ sense. McBride (the department/organization that runs this) appeals to the liberal arts sides of Mines students and seeks to create well-rounded and socially concious engineers. The FYH program starts freshman off with this kind of thinking by combining ideas of engineering alongside readings about ethics and other similar topics. It doesn’t boost your GPA like honors classes may have in high school, but it has the potential to look good on a resume if you keep going with McBride.
Okay, now thats out of the way, the program itself, I find to be really fascinating. The past semester we have learned about all different angles of how cities and citizens are interconnected through engineering and ethics. We are given problems and get entire class periods to solve them and we have some very riveting discussions about what it actually means to be an engineer. Work-wise, it can be a little much at times, but usually the professors are understanding. For the most part, it’s a lot of reading with a couple essays and projects thrown in. It depends on you, really, because some people really like the set up, while other students really hate it. If the things I mentioned above sound like you’d enjoy them, then definitely apply! The program is really a great way to meet new people with different ideas and gives you a break from taking a very STEM heavy course load.
Hello, ThatOneEngineer.
I have committed to Mines, and I have been accepted into the Honors program. I am particularly curious about Honors housing.
Can you provide any information on the Honors floor? I will try to room there or in the Adventure Leadership Community.
Thanks in advance:)
@EnvironmentalGuy congrats on your admission and acceptance to the Honors program. Did you just hear back about the Honors Program this week?
Glad to hear about your acceptance! Unfortunately, I don’t know very much about housing for the honors program, as I live in a different TLC, however, all the TLCs are fairly similar so I can give you info about what I know.
First of all, in general I am so glad you are looking at TLCs, because honestly, they are one of the best part about Mines. Having 30 like-minded individuals live on the same floor as you is amazing. Several times a semester, you’ll go out on “adventures” planned by your RA which is great to be in a TLC for because then they can specifically designate what type of activity to do, based on the community you’re in.
As for the Honors floor, I know a bit about their housing as I have class with a lot of them. They are based in the traditional dorms, which aren’t as nice as some of the suite style dorms, however, the deficit isn’t that great. What the trads lack in “shininess” and “aesthetics”, they make up for in functionality as they are the best located dorms for classrooms. Everyone is very much a community in these dorms and the Honors floor even more so because they all are guaranteed to have one class together (maybe two).
That’s really about all I know in terms of the Honors dorm specifically, but I would highly recommend applying to live there. Some great people at Mines live there this year and it really is an amazing community.
(ALC is great too, however, I know even less about them — sorry!)