<p>pixel, I don’t know if you’ve seen my posts about UT’s size, but in case you haven’t, here are my thoughts, based on my experiences! UT overall IS huge, but it’s not as if you see 50,000 students all the time, except at football games! It’s like a big city with a lot of neighborhoods. For example, I was usually in the engineering building with a small group of people. My engineering classes weren’t that big. The professors were accessible and willing to answer questions. I had lots of friends in my dorm. I just loved the atmosphere - there was always something going on! Oh, and my FAVORITE UT class was American History, with George Forgie (I think he’s still there!). 300 kids in the class. But he was such a wonderful storyteller that I looked forward to every lecture. He was happy to talk to me when I went to his office, and he even tried to convince me to switch majors to history! If I had skipped his class because it was big, I would have missed out on something special. And I enjoyed making one of the very few As he gave!</p>
<p>ML, I have a question…son got the honors for Engineering email, what if say he wants to do Computer Science in the College of Science now instead of Computer Engineering (which sounds more Electrical Engineering)? He had put College of Science down as 2nd choice and Cockrell as first Choice because he wants to learn software as well as hardware.</p>
<p>Can he change departments? Will he lose the honors?</p>
<p>You should probably call UT directly. My GUESS would be that it’s not too hard to transfer from Engineering to Science (the other way would be more difficult). I believe that the honors programs are entirely separate - the application process is different. So if he were in Science, he wouldn’t be in the Science Honors program. My son put Engineering first, Science second, and applied for the Science Honors program - we were surprised that biomed accepted him, but he did NOT get into Science Honors!</p>
<p>As ML said you should call. The term “honors” is a little confusing at UT. There are the honors programs that students apply to specifically via the honors application. These are evaluated by separate committees and students have to get accepted into them individually and in some cases can be in more than one. It is not like there is one blanket admission into "Honors"as is the case in many other schools. In your case admission into engineering honors doesn’t automatically translate into the Turing Scholars program which is the Computer science honors program. (Okay I haven’t researched this with those specific programs but I have with other programs at UT and it didn’t work to do that). Students may be accepted into one and not another and being accepted into one doesn’t mean that you can automatically transfer into the other. When you are accepted into an honors program you either accept or decline this admission just like you would with admission to a school. So you can go to UT decline Engineering honors, and still be an engineering student or a student in anything else. Then again you have to get accepted into your specific mayor so the anything else is provided you get accepted into it. Some programs are smaller and more competitive than others so you cannot just automatically pick any major and as ML alluded to some are more difficult to get into than others. Being in some honors programs does specifically require certain majors. So you would need to check what being an engineering honors student would require in terms of a major. Students who do not enter the school in an honors program can still graduate with subject honors based on meeting specific requirements in that subject and taking courses within the guidelines of the honors program. This is an option for students admitted to honors programs as freshmen and also for students who were not. These honors are different from the honors programs students are accepted into as freshmen and I believe these are applied for for the Junior and Senior years, so again more questions. This is all how I understood it when we went through the process of deciding last year. My student selected another school although I was really pushing for UT which is why I did the research. I hope this helps a little and isn’t so completely confusing.</p>
<p>Again the best thing is to sort out your questions and call directly!</p>
<p>One more thing. A freshman entering in any of the honors programs can live in the honors quad. Students not in an honors program can also live here if they have a roommate in honors, or there is space and they are approved to live there.</p>
<p>Thank you both for the replies^^</p>
<p>Husband is leaning towards UT for son as of now. Son is still digesting the fact that he got into such good colleges and has some tough calls to make.</p>
<p>We have a lot more research to do and I remember reading that Honors to Engineering is different from Turing Honors (son did not apply for that as it was an extra essay or something). I gather that the honors have a separate housing quad which takes of housing pressure I guess.</p>
<p>Perhaps he could take the first year courses in Engineering and transfer to CS in Science later on.</p>