Hi, I am attending UA in Fall 2024 as a recruited athlete. I am still looking for academic rigor and majoring in Computer Science.
I was thinking about applying for UFE among other programs within the Honors College but am torn due to not knowing what the time commitment will look like when I will already have a large portion of my time taken up for my sport.
Does anyone have experience in UFE or Randall Research with opinions and can help me gauge how much time out of a week I would spending for said program?
Don’t have experience with UF program but son is an EPIC scholar, in freshman forum and just got accepted into emerging research scholars program.
Being a recruited athlete and CS major are already two pretty heavy commitments. My suggestion would be to see how things play out 1-2 semesters before loading your plate with more. I recommend Freshman Forum as a pretty low key activity. EPIC and Randall (@Gatormama) require formal coursework and essays etc.
There is plenty of academic rigor in CS and associated coursework.
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Congrats to your kid, @1dadinNC - that’s awesome!!!
I can’t speak to UF or EPIC - can speak to Blount. It’s a heavy-duty commitment with weekly essays that require a lot of time. That lessens after freshman year, I have read.
My kid is flat out. He has 16 credit hours (4 of which are Blount courses), no “easy” courses at all. He is working 25 hours p/week. He’s in a musical thing, a student govt. thing, and a couple of other things. He says the homework load is intense, and despite thinking he was on top of time management, he is discovering that there is more to learn and apply there. He says he’s exhausted all the time.
I’m not sure that’s very reassuring, lol. I think the key is time management, and upping your game on whatever you had figured out in high school. It most certainly can be done, but your recruited athlete status might make things harder, for sure.
My son is part of the UA UFE program and its been fantastic. The time commitment consists of classes (for your minor) which satify all of the Honors credit requirements. He doesn’t have to take any of the traditional Honors corses but still will graduate with Honors via UFE. There are some functions that he has to attend but they are primarily at night and don’t conflict with his classes. He’s on the rowing team as well and has had no issues. It’s a great program and an automatic solid group of friends via his cohort which some UA students struggle to find if not in a frat and don’t hit it off with their roomates. First year has a trip to central Alabama after school in the summer (3 weeks) to do service work and Juniors go to Cuba during the summer before SR year. Other than that, no real time impact.
You can feel free to message me. My daughter checks several of the same boxes as you - D1 athlete, Randall Research Scholar, and a Computer Science major.
Randall Research was not too much a time commitment freshman year. It was 4 classes per week. Research is optional freshmen year. After freshmen year, the RRS class meets once per week, and there is an expectation of an additional 5-10 hours per week of research. Some students will do more.