Students in the Honors Program go through an academic journey marked with many challenges. Despite the rigors of the program, students there form a bond through their shared experience.
The Honors Program at Seton Hall is competitive, as there is a limited amount of spots available. Students who are accepted need to have graduated high school with a grade point average of 3.5 and scored at least a 660 on Evidence Based Reading/Writing in the SAT.
Through the Honors Program, students are required to take four six-credit courses, which covers most of the University CORE subjects.
“The benefits are that I was taking six credits a semester of a combination of philosophy, theology and English (among other) topics,” Anne Szmul, a senior business major, said. “While the program counts in place of the English for CORE religion classes, I definitely learned a lot more through the more rigorous program. It was also immersive. My freshman year, the freshmen Honors students lived together in Neumann Hall. Living together, we grew very close and worked and stressed together about honors and our other classes. Many of these people who were in the program with me remain some of my best friends, and they are all aspiring very high.”
Honors classes are taught by two professors, not one, so that students are able to consider various points of view and learn from diverse ideas.
“Most Honors classes have two professors, and these professors are from different departments at Seton Hall; having two professors with different areas of expertise adds to the value of the course,” Zachary Moore, a freshman history major, said.
While there are many benefits to being an Honors student, there can be some drawbacks as well.
“We miss out on a little bit of the freshman experience,” Szmul said. “We don’t live in Boland and we don’t have to take Journey of Transformation or other CORE classes where people meet more people than within our 90-100 freshman Honors Program size.”
Honors students may go on optional trips and have certain living arrangements reserved for them.
“We go on one trip per semester, an optional trip to a museum (like) the Cloisters (or) the Met, and live together freshman year,” Julia Nasiek, a freshman classical studies and philosophy major, said. “Living together helps create a close-knit community of students that read, study, and stress over honors together.”
Amanda Johnson, a sophomore occupational therapy major, explained how the Honors Program may attract students.
“The Honors Program is a rigorous program,” Johnson said. “I feel that it is primarily for students that wish to focus on academics and really want to challenge themselves.”
Kiah Conway can be reached at kiah.conway@student.shu.edu.
