Is honors worth it?

I was wondering whether graduating with honors makes a difference. My gpa is high enough to but at my school to graduate with honors requires a thesis and a research project and taking harder honors level classes. Is it worth going through the extra trouble to have the distinction that I graduated with honors?

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Country?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Honestly I think the main go to is cumulative GPA and major GPA. For applications, they probably won't notice a whole lot if your GPA is good.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
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Disclaimer: I was in a similar situation and did the extra work to be in the honors program and to be considered a graduate of the honors program in undergrad.

But, it was less of me doing extra work and more of me incorporating my plan of study as an undergrad through custom tailored classes. The program allowed me to interface directly in research with professors on a 1:1 basis while all of these classes counting as department electives. I think you should look at what this honors program could do for you and if you could benefit from it - if it is a pain or not worth it - up to you.

I did fine in most of my honors courses - except I got an 83 or something in an Honors English course on the first paper when I thought I definitely submitted a 95-98 paper and dropped the shit out of that immediately. I needed all As. This seemed to be a threat to my GPA and I think you have to look out for that sometimes if you are dealing with taking these honors versus non honors classes. Definitely seek out RateMyProfessor.com to see if some of these classes are worth it.

One of my 1:1 Honors classes was Mandarin Chinese. Just the teacher and I. It was in prep for a study abroad Columbia U/Peking U program. My school's Honors program paid for that whole trip actually (airfare and food and tuition - just not beer money). I was supposed to start at Level 2 Chinese in the summer, but didn't score high enough on Columbia's Chinese entrance test and so had to do Level 1 again. I was really pissed and it wasn't that hard for me, so just hit the city hard practically every night. Gong Ti clubs....

It was in prep for a Fulbright that I submitted that the Honors program was helping me with. I submitted a proposal to study underemployment in China and it was accepted on the US side, but China rejected it (I don't think they wanted me poking around) - most of the Fulbrights to there are in the arts or culture.

So see what your school's program can do for you. If its just a bunch of hard ass classes, maybe its not worth it.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

That sounds sick and definitely worth it in your situation. For me the honors program would just enable me to graduate with Latin honors and nothing more. It would likely lower my gpa and force me to take classes I wouldn’t like. Just trying to weigh that against how much b schools and potential employers would appreciate a cum Maude. Let me know what you think

 

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