Scholars Program (aka the Honors Progam)

As promised, a recap on Coe's Scholar's Program.

Around campus, this program is referred to as the Honors Program but it's official title is the Scholar's Program.  Throughout your years at Coe, you take five honor classes and then you'll have an asterisk next to your name denoting honors at graduation.  These five classes cross all areas of study on campus and help satisfy your general education requirements.  To be accepted into the program, you would submit an application about halfway through your first semester on campus and 20-30 students (from your grade) are chosen.  A rough estimation is that a 28 ACT and being a part of the top 10% of your high school class will greatly increase your chances of making it into the program.  But that's just a guideline and not a strict requirement the committee follows.  Once a part of the program, you would sign up for Honors Composition in the spring of your freshman year.

I took Honors Composition last spring with Gordon Mennenga.  It was probably one of my two favorite classes at Coe (my other top favorite being my First Year Seminar class).  We met twice a week, there were 16 freshman in my class, and we read essays, short stories, articles, and we wrote, a lot.  This class was definitely a deciding factor in how I wanted to lay out my major and minors.  I not only wrote a lot of fantastic things, but I also gained a mentor in Gordon.  It was an outstanding class.

Once Honors Composition is taken, then you have six semesters to take four other honors classes.  These classes have broad subject headings but each semester, the topic of the class and the professor who teaches it changes.  For instance, this semester I'm taking the Style in the Arts Honors class and it's all about Barcelona.  The professor is actually a native from the area and it's fun to hear her talk about her home country.  She's actually headed back to Spain this weekend for a conference.  Next semester I've enrolled to take a class about Tibet taught by our new anthropology professor.

A neat thing about this program is that once you've taken Honors Composition, your class will consist of students sophomore through senior.  It's a nice way to meet other students.  You know these students have that extra level of dedication to school and it's a fun environment to learn in.