UMD Help, Confused! Honors College, LL Communities, adept Honors, Maryland

Hi. My D was accepted to the Honors College. I don’t have a clear understanding of what that is exactly.

I’m completely confused by what the honors college actually is vs. applying to your department/major’s honors program your junior/senior year.
She’s supposed to decide on living learning communities now without having seen the school. Is Honors College added workload? Or is it being able to choose an honors class over a regular class?

Can you be in the honors college without being in a LLC? But then I saw that Honors College HC is a LLC. I’m so confused! Thanks for any help

@Aeg203 - The Honors College at UMD is made up of 7 different programs as listed in the following link

http://honors.umd.edu/livinglearning-prospstudents.html

Each program has an associated Dorm, where students in that program are housed. That is their Living Learning Community. (Freshmen do not pick their own dorm assignments)

The Honors Program selected or assigned does not necessarily have any connection to a studnt’s major. However students with certain majors may be inclined to pick a specific Honors Program (i.e. CS Majors may want to be in ACES). My D selected University Honors for its flexibility.

Each Honors Program requires a certain number of Honors Seminars or Honors Courses. These satisfy GenEd requirements that ALL students must meet to graduate, so in that sense they are not any additional work. My D satisfied her Honors Citation requirements by the end of her second year.

Honors College Seminars and Courses are limited to 20 students or less. Not all Courses have Honors version. That is done at the discretion of each Department. (i.e. The Math Department decides which math courses will have Honors versions)

The following link can show you courses offered at UMD. Not all courses are offered every semester.

https://app.testudo.umd.edu/soc/

Departmental Honors is handled through the Student’s Major Department (i.e. Engineering) and can be applied for by any student, as far as I know.

MODERATOR NOTE _Please move this thread to the UMD Forum

Thank you, SoofDad! This was a very helpful explanation. I found it hard to decipher the program from the website and the emails from UMD didn’t have a lot of info.

“She’s supposed to decide on living learning communities now without having seen the school.”
It’s a beautiful, self-contained campus (a bubble)…she will love it! =)

“Is Honors College added workload?”
It doesn’t have to be, depending on the program you choose and the classes you decide to take. One of my son’s friends did University Honors specifically because it did not require “extra” work (an understandable concern for engineering students) so he only took the honors seminars that also fulfilled gen ed (general education classes in a variety of topics required by the university for graduation to get a broad-based education) reqs. However, some seminars that are offered are just really interesting topics, so if your d enjoys edification for its own sake, she may take extra honors seminars “just for fun”…a hard concept for high school students to understand since their options are so limited.

“Or is it being able to choose an honors class over a regular class?” Yes, it means that when an honors version of a class is offered, your d will be ELIGIBLE to choose that version, but it’s NOT required that whenever an honors version of a class is available that she has to enroll in it instead of a regular version. As SoofDad said, honors version options are in some math and science classes.

“Can you be in the honors college without being in a LLC? But then I saw that Honors College HC is a LLC.” It just means that all students in a particular program are housed in the same dorm – it can be as simple as meaning (for University Honors) that when there are special activities such as an ice-cream party or bbq for that program, it is more convenient for the students in that program to participate. It creates a smaller community of people to interact with to help make a large campus feel smaller/more intimate.

The programmatic honors communities with themes like EIP, as an example, will have special events with speakers relative to the program or field trips relating to the theme of the program. In addition, programmatic communities will have specific courses for that theme, again bringing people with similar interests together. Specific to EIP, special features also include:
Team projects
Experiential learning
Case studies
Online simulations
Co-curricular workshops
Entrepreneur guest speakers
Design thinking & creativity projects
Lean startup methodology
Project management
Sustainable business models
Environmental & social impact
Global perspective

While a student may complete all courses “required” to get an honors citation within 2 years, they will still be “eligible” to take any honors college seminars throughout their 4 years.

Students are invited to honors college as incoming freshmen based on high school performance/record/application. The “citation” involves a ceremony, a notation on your transcript (but not on your diploma), and bling to sport at graduation.

In contrast, departmental honors is based entirely on college academic record. Students interested need to have a minimum gpa as determined by their specific department and must apply. Students that “qualify” based on gpa are NOT automatically considered…they must fill out an application which is reviewed for admission. In the case of engineering, once admitted, it involved doing a couple of seminars and an additional research project. Upon successful completion of departmental honors, there is a line denoting honors on your actual diploma in addition to the note on your transcript, plus honors cords and honors tassle to sport at graduation.

As a general fyi, students that were not admitted to honors college as freshmen, but admitted to departmental honors later, they will then become “eligible” to also take honors seminars of interest to them. The only difference is that they need to get a code added to their student ID when they want to register for honors seminars (always granted, but just an extra step) whereas students that start out in honors college automatically have their ID encoded to allow them to enroll in any honors class.