Student dissatisfied with a pecular academic situation
Laura Nosal
Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: Viewpoint
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Obsessing over the future like usual, I started contemplating my options for spring semester courses about a month ago. It was a fairly routine process - I dug out my course catalog and my academic audit and began checking courses I'd taken off the list. I was pleased to discover that not only would I be graduating on time, but I only had three courses remaining between my major and minor. Although initially relieved that the bulk of my work lay behind me, I soon remembered something I'd committed to when coming to Assumption - I wanted to graduate with honors.
I had a rough idea of what I needed to do to attain this: take eight courses in five different disciplines, most of them outside of my major, over my eight semesters. Yet as I recently debated dropping a particularly difficult course, it forced an emergency needs reevaluation. If I dropped it, how many would I still need to take?
A week later I was sitting in (associate psychology) Professor Fitzpatrick's office and she and I scratched our heads, trying to get down to the bottom of exactly what I'd chosen to take on. (More like gotten myself into.) Then I heard the dreaded words: "I believe you've slipped through the cracks."
I was in a terribly sticky situation. I am in an "honors program" that I assume very few of my colleagues are in, if they even realize it exists. By this I mean "my" honors program, not the version revised for the 2006-2007 year. To this day I am not 100 percent sure of the program's technicalities, but I am surely disappointed with my situation. Although Professor Fitzpatrick and I laid some groundwork toward fixing this problem, I left her office that day thankful that I had spoken up, avoiding potential pre-graduation chaos. As it turned out, dropping the class would have forced me to enroll in two honors courses next semester, and fortunately I have made the right decision to stay in it. A heavy course load during spring of senior year is no picnic.
The current Honors Program is very well structured, with six required classes: HON 100 (Life Stories), HON 101 (Global Perspectives), HON 300 (Honors Seminar), and HON 444 (Honors Capstone), 2 honors electives as well as an honors service project. I would have been instantly sold on a straightforward sequence such as this if I had come to Assumption two years later.
I had a rough idea of what I needed to do to attain this: take eight courses in five different disciplines, most of them outside of my major, over my eight semesters. Yet as I recently debated dropping a particularly difficult course, it forced an emergency needs reevaluation. If I dropped it, how many would I still need to take?
A week later I was sitting in (associate psychology) Professor Fitzpatrick's office and she and I scratched our heads, trying to get down to the bottom of exactly what I'd chosen to take on. (More like gotten myself into.) Then I heard the dreaded words: "I believe you've slipped through the cracks."
I was in a terribly sticky situation. I am in an "honors program" that I assume very few of my colleagues are in, if they even realize it exists. By this I mean "my" honors program, not the version revised for the 2006-2007 year. To this day I am not 100 percent sure of the program's technicalities, but I am surely disappointed with my situation. Although Professor Fitzpatrick and I laid some groundwork toward fixing this problem, I left her office that day thankful that I had spoken up, avoiding potential pre-graduation chaos. As it turned out, dropping the class would have forced me to enroll in two honors courses next semester, and fortunately I have made the right decision to stay in it. A heavy course load during spring of senior year is no picnic.
The current Honors Program is very well structured, with six required classes: HON 100 (Life Stories), HON 101 (Global Perspectives), HON 300 (Honors Seminar), and HON 444 (Honors Capstone), 2 honors electives as well as an honors service project. I would have been instantly sold on a straightforward sequence such as this if I had come to Assumption two years later.
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