The Campuswide Honors Collegium Experience

UC Irvine’s Campuswide Honors Collegium, as the name suggests, is an academic honors program that is geared towards bringing the most ambitious of college students together. The honors curriculum allows students to get the most out of their college education, allowing them to explore a wide variety of challenging topics that are beyond their chosen major. To cap it all off, CHC students are given the resources to produce their very own Honors Thesis under the guidance of a professor on campus. 

Students hoping to join this program are able to enter as first years, continuing students, or even as transfer students! With over 1,000 students (including over 170 transfer students), I decided to ask my friend Alexis about her journey as a Campuswide Honors Collegium student.

Hey Alexis! Thanks for joining me today, it’s great hearing from you. How about we get started with a quick introduction?

Hi Jalen! My name is Alexis, pronouns she/her/hers, and I’m majoring in business administration. I’ll be graduating in 2022.

So to get things started, how about you tell us how you began things with the CHC? Did you always know that you wanted to be part of CHC?

I was told I had the opportunity to join CHC during my senior year of high school. When I was first invited to accept my CHC invitation, I didn’t know what it was, and to be honest, it wasn’t something that I considered when I was choosing which college to go to. At that time, I didn’t really know the benefits I was able to access until SPOP and during my freshman year at UCI. But, even though I didn’t know what CHC was when I first committed to UCI, it has definitely been a big part of my life academically. I have loved my honors classes so much. I have seen my growth academically, and I give a lot of credit to the CHC program for that growth. 

A common stereotype of honors programs at universities is that they are intimidating and create a more stressful environment. From your experience, has CHC debunked those myths? How has the program supported you throughout your college career?

Yes, totally! If anything, the CHC courses and community has helped me manage the stressful environment of college better than had I not been in the program. The CHC counselors are a really big help when it came to mapping out what I wanted to explore academically as well as personally. CHC really wants their students to succeed, so it’s like having a personal cheerleading team. But, I honestly think the professors who teach honors classes are one of the biggest reasons why I feel prepared to take on whatever I pursue after college. They are super supportive of the CHC students, and if anything, try to kind of show us that there’s more to school and life than getting a good grade (especially because I feel like that’s a big idea ingrained in high school, is just to get good grades). 

A big part of the CHC curriculum are the honors series courses that you take. Would you be able to give us a quick explanation of what those entail, and what have been some of your favorite moments from these classes?

So, there are two tracks that CHC students can pick from. The Classic track and the Sustainable Societies track. I chose Classic, which means I take Humanities Core, Social Science Core, and Science Core throughout my freshman-junior year. My absolute favorite class was Humanities Core and my physics class in Science Core. My professors were absolutely amazing and brilliant, and the courses were engaging and super interesting (even though it’s something that I’m not personally pursuing in college as a business admin major). 

Can you tell us about the community outside of the classroom? How is the network that is forged between you and other CHC students?

We actually have quite the community. I’ve lived in CHC halls my freshman and sophomore year here at UCI, and am now a CHC Resident Advisor! I think the biggest thing that helps bring the CHC students together is the classes we take, because we can discuss the topics outside of class and they’re the best resource to have when you’re confused, frustrated, or doubting yourself as a student.

Lastly, do you have any parting words of advice you’d like to provide for current and future Campuswide Honors students?

I would say to take advantage of the opportunity to bond with both your professors and with your peers. Your professors are super cool people that are just absolutely brilliant, and your peers will definitely be your biggest cheerleaders when you start doubting yourself or have imposter syndrome. And, good luck! College (and CHC) is such an adventure, and there’s no one right path to follow!