Emily Friedenberg and Hazel Lallemand are both sophomores in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts who came to the University of Oregon as Clark Honors College students.
Friedenberg, who has applied to become a product design major, was attracted to the small class sizes and liberal arts education that the Honors College offered.
“I applied to the UO as a safety school and the Honors College was my way to go to a small liberal arts school without having to pay for one,” Friedenberg said.
Lallemand, an architecture major, applied to the Honors College to feed her love of learning. Her Clark Honors Introductory Program class, the honors equivalent of a First-Year Interest Group class, exceeded her expectations of the college.
“The CHIP I took about race and incarceration was one of the best classes I’ve taken so far,” Lallemand said.
But as they began their classes in the Honors College, Friedenberg and Lallemand had different experiences. While Friedenberg loved the intimate nature of the small classes, Lallemand found herself missing the lecture format of her other classes.
“Lectures are really engaging for me,” Lallemand said. “I want to learn form the professors rather than have discussions.”
Friedenberg remains one of 744 students enrolled in the Honors College, which has a first to second year retention rate of 92 percent. Lallemand has dropped out, and credits her decision to the lack of overlap in her architecture and honors classes.
“The Honors College is marketed as this great diverse education for all when it doesn’t work for everyone,” Lallemand said. Lallemand was especially frustrated with her experiences in the literature and history classes.
“We have a reputation for our literature and history sequences,” Dean Terry Hunt said. The Honors College requires students to take two literature and history sequences, as well as a research class in either literature or history.
“Our gen-ed requirements get stereotyped and we are much more diverse than that,” Hunt said. “Our number one major is biology.”
While Friedenberg agreed that not much of the class material overlaps with her other classes, she enjoys the variety of the material.
“The classes kind of slow down graduation for me,” Friedenberg said, “but I really like supplementing my major and minor requirements with these classes.”
Students enrolled in the Honors College also pay a tuition differential of about $3700. For Lallemand, the costs added up.
“My parents will do whatever it takes to pay for my education, and it severely cuts back on what they can do, like fly to see our family,” Lallemand said. “When it comes to paying $3000 for classes that I don’t get much out of, it’s not worth it for me.”
Friedenberg disagreed.
“It’s worth it to me,” Friedenberg said. “You pay more, but you get what you pay for in the smaller classes and greater attention.”
The Honors College also offers scholarships to students after they complete their freshman year, which can help defray the costs of the college.
While Lallemand does not regret leaving the college, she does wish things could have been different.
“If it was more feasible and more manageable around my schedule then I would have stayed,” Lallemand said.
According to Hunt, the benefits of being a Clark Honors College student outweigh any drawbacks.
“One thing I always tell students is all you have to do is say, ‘I’m a student in the Clark Honors College,’ and when you complete that sentence it’s already so imbued with so many things: it was hard to get in, the classes were demanding, you were learning critical thinking,” Hunt said. “The student immediately benefits from that.”
Follow Francesca Fontana on Twitter @francescamarief