University Honors Program
Anyone who has read my profile must have heard of University Honors Program, but what is it? How to get into the program?
Well, University Honors Program is the program that brings students with good academic record during their school years together. This is the newly organized program of the University of Minnesota. There are students from every college and from every discipline in this program. How can this program be beneficial to students? Let's find out.
This program is beneficial to students in the program in many ways. First of all, students are eligible to enroll in Honors classes.
What are the differences between Honors classes and non-honors ones?
Well, first of all, the instructors are well chosen by the University Honors Program. They are those who have been teaching and doing research on their discipline for so long that they are very well-regarded. They know the materials in the class very very well and sometimes, they even know something beyond the text book from their own research and experiences. I remember my Microeconomics class I took last semester. It was a wonderful class. I pretty much understood the materials right away in the class without having to spend much time trying to do so outside the class. Professor Donald Liu, my professor in that class, knows the stuffs really well and he used the multimedia presentation and variety of examples to make the principles easier to understand. It was a really impressive experience for me.
Furthermore, in Honors classes, every student in the class is honors student, so they are very smart! The atmosphere in the class is somewhat intellectually-engaging. Students always ask in-depth questions during the class. Many of those questions go beyond the materials covered in the class, but most of them are very interesting. These questions even sometimes help me understand the materials much better. It is also very common after the class that students go down to talk to professor and I really like staying there listening to the answer even though I don't have any question myself. These make Honors classes very exciting.
One point about Honors classes that are misunderstood by many students is that Honors classes are harder. No! That is wrong. Honors classes are not harder; instead, these classes cover somewhat deeper materials that are not too hard to understand. In fact, the characteristic of Honors classes is the size of the classes. Honors classes are usually smaller. For example, there might be 200-300 or more in regular Physics class, but there are only 60 students in my Honors Physics. This, as a result, makes professors more accessible.
Apart from Honors classes, students in this program will also have a group of advisers to help guide them through college years. Most of the time, this program will help find scholarships for students in the program as well. Furthermore, students will be able to stay in the "Honors Housing" in Middlebrook Hall. This is the great opportunities to live with other Honors students to stay connected with other Honors students. From my own experiences, whenever I have homework that I can't do on my own, there are always someone in the building who can help me. Whenever I have a test, I always have someone to study with. During dinner, I also enjoy talking with my friends on some interesting topics both academically and non-academically. All these help enhance my academic experiences greatly and are very advantageous to my learning.
Finally, after talking about the program, you may wonder how to get into the program. Go to this link:http://www.honors.umn.edu/admission/first-year.html, which is the website of the University Honors Program and you will find out the details about admission. You can also find other information about the program on this website.
Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions regarding the program. You can leave a comment here with your e-mail so that I can reply to you or you can just leave your comment hear and I will use the comment to answer your question.