What I Learned from Taking Honors Variant, Honors Module, and Honors Topic Courses in the Same Semester
By Ashley Hagan
As every Honors student knows, each semester brings a renewed focus on getting their courses of intention. After completing the freshman Honors curriculum, students still need to obtain an additional nine credits from Honors courses. Students who did not enter the Honors College as a freshman need more credits still. Depending on your major, that can be a daunting prospect. My journey to get the correct number of credit hours led me to simultaneously taking an Honors Variant course, an Honors Module course, and an Honors Topic course, even though I didn’t need to take them all at the same time. Trust me, it was an experience.
Honors Variants
For some majors, these are the most useful classes; for everyone else, they’re just good fun. Honors variants are regular classes that reserve a few seats and a bit of extra work (a thousand-word paper, anyone?) specifically for Honors students.
While these come from a variety of majors, most of them tend to be humanities classes in subjects like English, History, and Philosophy which are accessible to a wide variety of non-majors but don’t allow as much double-dipping for STEM majors.
As a Biology and English double major, I can see both sides of this. I just finished “Love & Death in Victorian Fiction,” which was a delightful but reading-intensive foray into authors like the Brontë sisters and Thomas Hardy. For STEM majors looking for a diversion, seventy pages per class period is not what anyone expects. The Honors twist? We had a third essay to write, while most of the class did not. Like I said, I doubt any STEM majors who aren’t secret Brontë fans or aspiring novelists are looking to write three essays. They’d probably prefer more relevant Honors Topic courses instead.
For those who are up for it, however, this extra work honestly isn’t that overwhelming. This is my second English class for which I’ve taken the Honors variant, and both times I’ve mainly had that one extra essay. Some classes probably ask more of their Honors students than a single essay, though, so I must put in my plea here for more transparency about what additional work is required of Honors students, but it largely seems like a reasonable ask for an English class. While the class is designed to be rigorous enough for everyone not in the Honors variant, professors do take care to keep the workload reasonable. You may resent it while writing that extra essay, but it’s still fair enough.
Honors sections are really quite similar, except that the entire class has this “do more work for the same class” focus, albeit with a smaller student body that allows for more interaction with the professor. There’s also a welcome diversity here amongst options for what are likely the most popular majors for Honors students, including requirements for Biology majors.
Honors Modules
I like to consider these classes temptations. Reenacting history? Love it. Knocking out the CHS Fine Arts requirement? Count me in.
This semester, I finally took “Reuse, Recycle, Recreate.” Each week involved making a small art project (self-portraits, sculptures, sewing, and shadow boxes) and commenting on the work of others. Faced with tests and essays, art is refreshingly meditative.
My pitfall? I was already signed up for 17 credits when I added a 1.5-credit cherry on top, and I proceeded to spend six weeks paying for it. It may not seem like a lot, but it’s an additional class, so you either have to sign up for less to accommodate it or (my unwise favorite) ever-so-slightly overcommit or (most logically) very carefully pair two to equal one class for the semester.
Honors Topics
These are the most diverse and the most interesting and the most accessible to all Honors students. However, depending on their modality or subject matter, they tend to fill up fast. If you want one, be prepared to click fast on registration day. I say this because it took me two semesters to get the highly relevant Honors topic course “Nutrition Intelligence,” which happens to be asynchronous. Plenty of people like when a class is asynchronous.
Even for people who aren’t considering the health professions, “Nutrition Intelligence” is a great class for learning how to build healthy eating habits. But there are plenty of other options, too, including some which foster a real sense of community among students. You can learn about research, writing, or leadership. You can study human disease, pandemics, or Broadway musicals. There was even a class this Spring semester on romance novels, and I envy anyone who signed up for it.
The Verdict
When picking Courses of Intention, there’s something for everyone. While some majors make it easier than others to decide, you’re bound to find something you enjoy to get your nine credit hours. So the next time you register for classes, consider your options with an open mind and choose wisely. Just don’t do what I did and try to do them all at once.