Incoming fall-semester first-year students must take an honors first-year seminar or a required seminar within your major during their first semester at the University of Iowa (these courses are limited only to UI Honors Program students). Often students think honors courses are more work and consequently harder than non-honors sections – similar to high school AP classes: do all the work a regular class requires, and then do additional work to make it AP. That’s not how honors works at the university level. It’s actually the students in the honors sections that make the biggest difference. Put a group of motivated and serious students all together in one class working on the same problems, and you have a major ingredient for a supercharged learning environment. Add an instructor who is knowledgeable and excited about the course topic and who allows the students a strong voice in how the learning is to occur, and you get the ideal honors environment.

Ask students in that class if it was more work or harder, and you’ll get answers such as, “No, not really more work or harder – just different.” Ask the instructor if the students were required to cover more material and were challenged more than in a non-honors section, and you’re likely to hear that what they did do was go deeper and broader with the topic. Students may have accomplished more and engaged in more challenging activities, but it did not come across as more work or as harder. Rather, it was an engaging, meaningful, and rewarding challenge on a relevant and important topic. Also, fun, and an easy way to build community with other honors students and faculty. That’s an Honors First-Year Seminar!

Some Honors seminars are also offered as research-focused seminars, so be on the lookout for these as well. Students will register for an Honors First-Year Seminar during their fall course registration process.