Students within LSU’s Ogden Honors College have a list of requirements to complete in order to graduate with honors. By doing these requirements, honors students have access to resources unavailable to the rest of the student body. But is the work worth the reward?

History professor, Jonathon Earle, serves as the Dean of the Honors College. According to Earle, the Honors College received 16,000 applications last year and accepted 3,750 students. Out of those students, around 865 chose to attend LSU and be in the Honors College, making it the biggest entering class the college has ever had.

Earle described the admissions process as an “intricate collaboration” to determine who should be accepted based on a variety of factors, including finding students who will participate in the Honors College’s four themes: service, study abroad, internships and research, and an honors thesis in their senior year. 

“We use your story…I’m looking for students who are going to persist for four years in the Honors College, do all the things that we’ve decided are important,” Earle said. “[Students] who raise their hand saying, ‘I’m willing to do more work to have a more challenging and enriching experience of college academically.’” 

Earle said it’s harder to determine the exact number of students in the Honors College. Every year, a percentage of students leave for a variety of reasons, including not being able to maintain the GPA requirement or meet the required number of honors course credits.

At a big university like LSU, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, but Earle sees the Honors College as a way to make the university a smaller place where students can succeed.

He said there’s an art appreciation class taught by Professor Darius Spieth that has 3,900 students enrolled. Meanwhile, the honors version of the class only has 20 people in it. Because of the smaller environment, Earle said honors students will get a different experience.

Along with smaller classes, honors students also have access to the honors community at Laville Hall and East Campus Apartments, as well as opportunities for weekend trips and study abroad programs.

Based on feedback he’s heard over the years, Earle believes the Honors College will benefit students even after graduation.

“I can’t tell you how many people who said to me, ‘I applied for a job at a law firm, and they wanted to talk about my honors college thesis on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan’…It’s something that actually will come to your aid more times over your lifetime than most undergraduates can imagine,” he said.

Biological sciences junior Ria Salway chose to apply to the Honors College after hearing she could write a thesis through the program. 

Salway is part of the Honors College’s Louisiana Service and Leadership (LASAL) program. According to the Honors College website, LASAL scholars have to take certain classes and show that they are passionate about solving the biggest problems affecting the state.

Opportunities like the LASAL Scholar program are one of the main things Salway likes about the Honors College. She said the college advocates for different research, service and scholarship opportunities that make them more accessible to her than if she hadn’t been an honors student.

“[The Honors College] is the kind of environment where […] I’ve never been told I can’t do something,” she said. “If I’ve ever had something I really wanted to do […] the people in the Honors College work really hard to help you achieve that.”

Although the Honors College has been beneficial for Salway, she sometimes doesn’t agree with the push to do things just for your resume. While she doesn’t believe this is exclusive to the Honors College, she said being in an academic environment can lead to this mindset.

“People will sort of encourage you to do stuff for your resume, even if it’s not stuff that necessarily you find value in or aligns with your interests…Like, I don’t want to do things that I don’t want to do, just because I think they’ll look good on something,” Salway said.

Despite the resume-building mentality that can be present in the Honors College, Salway said she knows it probably comes from a place of the faculty wanting students to succeed.

For biological sciences junior Kenedi Lynch, the Honors College was her deciding factor to move from her hometown of Houston, Texas to attend LSU.

Lynch believes one of the best things about being an honors student is the sense of community she receives in comparison to her major college, describing it as a “community within the larger LSU community.”

“[With the Honors College] you start seeing the same people in your classes, you start seeing the same people hanging out in the French House, you live with these people if you’re in the Honors dorm, so you just kind of start forming that kind of tight-knit community,” she said.

Lynch sees the scholarship advisers as especially helpful. She received assistance from the Honors College to apply to the Amgen Scholars Program, an undergraduate research program that allowed her to spend the past summer doing research at Johns Hopkins University.

“[The Honors staff has] just been so helpful. And they honestly just want to see everybody succeed, and they take the time to get to know the students […] And with a smaller number of students, you can definitely get that like one-on-one face time,” Lynch said.

Like Earle, Lynch thinks the Honors College will help with her future career. She said the connections she’s made and the coursework she’s taken demonstrate her ambition to go above and beyond. She also plans to write a thesis, which she thinks will reflect well on her when applying for medical or graduate school. 

Without the Honors College, Lynch believes she would be in a very different place and would most likely not be attending LSU.

“The Honors College has been like such a fundamental part of my education here at LSU, especially during our first year, since we came in when COVID was at its peak, and things were just really weird. And it was really awesome to be able to fall back on that sense of community,” she said.

Over the summer, political science sophomore Hannah Culp traveled to London and Edinburgh with the Honors College as part of their study abroad program. 

Culp has received a few scholarships from the Honors College, including one for study abroad. After spending three weeks in Europe, Culp said the trip was the highlight of her time at LSU.

Culp said the intimate classes offered by the Honors College, both abroad and at LSU, are one of the best parts about being an honors student. Culp’s favorite classes are her honors seminar classes, which usually have less than 20 students, allowing more room for conversation and debate.

She said she uses her honors credits as her “fun” classes, even if they don’t correlate with political science.

“I took [a class] on Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte — nothing to do with my major, but I just wanted to take the class. It keeps it kind of fun and like tomorrow is something that I actually look forward to, besides the stuff relating to my major,” Culp said.

While her seminar courses are entertaining, Culp said it can be difficult to find honors classes offered within her major without honors optioning the course. While there are many general education honors courses available, the lack of credits available within her own major makes it “inaccessible” at times.

Culp said she overall enjoys the Honors College and the intimacy within it. Culp is in a sorority and has seen firsthand how the Honors College offers the same sense of community. Being surrounded by so many high-achieving students is also beneficial to Culp, who said it keeps her motivated to do her best in school. 

“You get to see people doing these great things. And it just keeps inspiring you to like, keep trying […] It just keeps you on that motivated track of making sure you’re doing the most you can do for your college experience,” she said.