UNM honors might need some improvement

The honors program at the University of New Mexico is a wonderful program that offers a safe way for students to venture out side of their major. They do this by having a grading option where of pass/fail or “A”. This makes the honors class either a GPA booster or a safe chance to gain knowledge from a different subject area. Furthermore the program is equipped with very knowledgeable and qualified teachers. They are seriously the best of the best and treat the students with respect. So the problem is not with the content or the people, but it is one strange procedure.

The great flaw of the honors program is the odd requirement to attend preview night at the start of each semester. This is a one night event where the content of each class is presented and then each student hands in their two or three top selections for the classes. However if you cannot attend the preview night your picks are submitted on a different form and unlocked days after those who could attend. Consequently, those who are unable to attend are unable to register for their classes until after the general registration of all other UNM students. Most will find that there top choices are filled and they are forced to either shift their schedule around or sacrifice the honors class for a semester. Also since each person can only unlock three classes initially if those three classes are filled then the person must then go back to the honors forum and request for additional classes to be opened. I guess I just do not understand why they cannot mark honors classes like they mark prerequisites classes, just blocking them unless accepted into the program.

Personally I loved the honors class I took, it was very different and I learned a lot. Unfortunately, the next semester I could not get a class that fit in my schedule because I work, and was unable to attend preview night. Initially I was going to just skip a semester and make it up in the summer or double up the following semester. However I eventually found that it just was not worth it for me.

The honors program at the University of New Mexico is great…for the most part. The system just needs to be updated, perhaps like other universities. For example, the University of Utah has an honors program which allows students who have been accepted in to the honors program to automatically enroll in the appropriate honors class level. Also they have the option for departmental honors too, which are just specialized courses in the student’s major rather than courses that are random; however they also allow for regular honors if they choose to get general honors. Most importantly, they do not have the requirement to attend a “Preview Night”. Maybe UNM could just update the system a bit.