Student dissatisfied with a pecular academic situation

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.

The reason I'd investigated the honors program (note that I had to actively seek it out, the revised program I believe is more available and advertised to students) was because I wanted to go above and beyond Assumption's basic academic program and challenge myself. I wanted to break away from the crowd. I wanted to do something that not many people knew about. Yet it is this same reason that I am kicking myself as I creep closer to graduation.

Despite my relative annoyance, I have learned many things from the honors courses I have taken. I have descended into Dante's Inferno, climbed Mann's Magic Mountain and read more of Socrates' Apology than I have the use for. Once I realized that the Foundations Program courses qualified as honors, I found myself with an easy-to-follow sequence for my eight semesters. At the same time, I didn't have many other choices as there were only a handful of honors courses listed in each semester's course offering. The Foundations program is comprehensive and fascinating, but I'm not really "in" it; instead I've taken most of those courses because I've "slipped through the cracks."

You may be thinking, "Why bother criticizing the situation, the problem will no longer exist after the class of 2009." But I find it upsetting that not only I, but also faculty members, were vague on what constituted "graduating with honors." And not only is the program vague, but I had diligently followed, what little information I had and still found myself trying to maintain both the required and extra courses at a point where the rest of my academic career should be cut-and-dry.

Assumption College has successfully revised its new program and current freshmen and sophomores are fortunate to have an honors dorm option, an honors lounge, and a new genre of classes directed right at them. But what about me? I thought I would be able to understand a program designed to launch me into a challenging world. So much for being smart.