OPINION: Honored to be an honors student
guaranteed transfer to UCI and UCLA
Participating in the honors program can be a daunting prospect for college students. Wealready have enough stress and expectations put on us by universities like getting a strong GPA in regular classes, keeping a job, volunteer work, club participation, leadership positions and giving them our first-born child. Now, we have to add the honors program to that list. With that said, the program actually has a lot of perks and is definitely worth students’ time.
As an honors student myself, the biggest draw for me was the priority registration. I never felt like entering battle for a spot in a class everyone and their mom wanted to be in and worrying about not finishing required credits on time.
In addition, honors classes offer specialized classes with smaller sizes. This allows for more personalized attention from teachers which helps students grasp material and provides a more interactive classroom experience. And let’s be honest, if you participate, this leads to great recommendation letters.
Going along with the special attention theme for honors kids, there are designated counselors specifically for those in the program so they can guide you through your courses and make sure all your necessary units are completed.
Although I’m sure I’ve convinced you to become an honors students already, I’ve yet to tell you the biggest perk. Guaranteed priority transfer admission review at many universities including University of California Irvine and University of California Los Angeles.
For the majority of students at community colleges, our goal is to transfer out and move onto bigger and better things, but sometimes it’s hard to stand out among the sea of potential transfers. We all try to find different ways to appear unique to universities and being a part of the honors program will definitely put you higher on their lists.
There is never an automatic acceptance to a transfer school, but completing the program exemplifies a student’s desire to excel and work ethic to finish the courses successfully. To guarantee success, the program tries to assist students in any way they can.
Given all the opportunities this program offers, I can’t say there are any downsides or reasons students shouldn’t participate. All it takes is giving up a few hours of watching “The Real Housewives of Wherever” or deciding on Instagram filters to dedicate the time to furthering your academic career.