Opinion: My Experience in the New Honors Program

When I received an email that I had gotten into the Honors Program back in December, I was excited. It was cool to be among only 20 or so other students chosen for what felt like a really prestigious opportunity.

A week or two later, our first meeting was held with a lot of potential. We discussed future project ideas and got to know each other and the teachers. While this was before the start of the spring semester, I was still optimistic that these meetings would continue into the academic year.

We were then assigned advisors, which I thought would be a great resource. They scheduled an initial meeting with us, then that was the end of that. Flash forward to week seven of the spring semester, the activity of the Honors Program has been slim to none.

There have not been any meetings or follow-up advising appointments made. For students like myself that are taking honors designated courses, I suddenly remembered that I have to complete an enrichment project for my course in order to get credit for the honors program.

I sat back and thought, why am I doing this project anyway? I haven’t talked to my advisor or met with the other students in the program since before the semester started.

To complete my enrichment project, I had to purchase a $45 book written by my professor. While taking a course for an honors designation is a great opportunity, it will not go on my transcript, and the piece that I have to write based on the book will most likely not be used again in the future.

With Zoom fatigue and the overwhelming amount of work during midterm week, I feel that the honors program is stressing us out rather than helping. I was hoping for it to be a form of support during our semester, but it has become more of a burden on top of other responsibilities we have as students at this time.

Although this is the “pilot” semester of the honors program, I think that we could be doing better. Pitt-Greensburg must improve the Honors Program if they plan for it to be more successful in the future.