Clog 13: Chapter 13: Undergraduate Education Triage: Honors Program Lifeboats

As the old saying goes “sink or swim,” if you are not an honor student you better get out your life vest because as discussed in this chapter, you will need it. The difference between honors courses and regular classes are astounding. Honors students get to skip out on many introductory classes, they have a much smaller student to professor ratio than the normal UG class and everyone is paying the same tuition. The small class size in honors program in the key factor versus the enormous size of UG class. This is an interesting factor considering that UG students make up the general population of universities. Honors students embody the oldest university traditions, the academically talented students eventually becomes the “faculty of the future.” Professors have a hatred for the UG because they feel these students lack the ability to care for the courses and their course work. At the University of Michigan, non honor classrooms are so big that often televisions monitors are set up so the students in the back of the lecture hall can see and hear the professor better. This can be compared to going to a concert, sitting in the nose-bleed section and watching it on the “large screen monitor.” The major difference here is the cost factor; a concert ticket is not equivalent to the cost of a college education