Today I am going in depth on my opinions on the honors program at the University of Memphis. Dr. Shirley Raines states the honors program is growing, which in fact it is. Yet, what does the term “honors” signify? In reality, it is meaningless. Students are only required to take one honors class per semester in order to qualify for the honors diploma. Sure the honors classes are smaller and more discussion base and I applaud that. But one class does not give the right for a person to brag they are in the honors program. Additionally I want to know how many people are taking all honors courses like me. I have five classes and two labs and they are all to my knowledge honors classes if an honors class is available.
So at the University of Memphis, we have 400 students who technically are honors but most likely not up to par to other honors program. Then there are the required UNHP classes that I don’t know what they accomplish. In fact when I talked to my engineering advisor, she was adamant that I cannot graduate without taking 2 or 4 UNHP courses (I forget how many it is.). When I was in high school, an honors student meant something. Now apparently a student can get away with saying he or she graduated with honors by just taking a measly two hour course. That’s degrading. In order to be part of the honors program, the student must at least have 6 hours preferably all honors classes per semester.
Part of the problem is students not wanting to push themselves. They would rather party it up than hit the books and literally live in the library. Instead of attending a top notch graduate program like Illinois Urbana-Champaign or Berkeley, most just end taking a job for 40,000 after getting a B.S. degree, which really is a bullshit degree. So the question is whether the students at the University of Memphis are here for play or business. From what I see, most (most not all) students are here so they can say they went to school. So that’s the problem. A solution can be for all the students to get off their asses and perform, make the University of Memphis a legit metropolitan university and not known as “Tiger High”. Trust me we are not only helping ourselves get better jobs with higher pay but also we are helping pave the way for future Memphis students to be recognized as the best.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I really don't think the University promotes high academic standards to what it could be. I'd have to agree with you on the fact that the honors program requirements are a joke. The students I've encountered in the UNHP classes really aren't driven to do anything more than show up to class.
Really I'm getting lazy from the other classes that I've been taking. It's really what you make of it, and there's no push towards excellence, just a reminder here and there.
Ahh...this one guy in my UNHP class said that there should be a class for "Shouldn't Be in the Honors Program Students." I sort of agreed... My advisor told me that I had to take this "really prestigious Honors class" aka the UNHP deal. The class is interesting (on Tuesdays at least) but I have no idea how the hell some of these people got into the Honors Program. Don't you have to have like a 26 on the ACT to get in? What, do they just pull that out of their ass? I had to drop most of my classes because one class was changed to a different time so I got landed with three regular courses. Although I agree that the Honors program does not push academics as hard as it should, I can't believe some of the people in my regular classes. I heard one girl who sits behind me in a class ask if the U.S. was presidential or parliamentary. Yeah, I wasn't sure either....><
I am so fed up with the honors program. I wanted to take mostly honors classes because I actually wanted something challenging and was prepared to work hard to maintain good grades. So far my classes have been pretty easy except for maybe the workload in this class.
When I talked to my advisor he told me to sign up for as many honors classes as I could and said that they werent any harder than the regular classes and might actually be easier becasue there werent as many people. This is definitely true in our chemistry class, our professor is a horrible teacher. I didnt even study our notes and i got an A on the exam. It just seems ridiculous that even the professors know that honors classes are a joke. It really isnt an accomplishment to take honors classes it seems more like taking the easy way out.
It's really an average school. There's extras here and there, but we really don't use all of our resources. We're not really known for anything. It's actually one of the reasons I chose Memphis though. I could have gone to Vanderbilt, Penn State, or UT... just a bigger name school, but honestly, I didn't want to be a dumb kid at a smart school. Trust me, people here will notice you if you are the only one trying. It's aggravating, but it's only the first semester.
I went to an Honors Orientation yesterday (which apparently you have to do to be able to register early), and it was about 30 minutes of this guy pimping the honors program, while at the same time assuring us that honors courses aren't hard at all. It's like he wanted us to feel smart, but wanted us to know that we can still be lazy. When students are told that they don't have to work hard, they aren't going to. So far this is the only honors class that I've been impressed with.
Post a Comment