College Honors Society

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I was recently invited to join my college's honor society program and I'm not sure whether I should waste my time or not. Does this really make a huge difference on a resume?

I would have to take 3 additional honors courses ($$$) in addition to writing a 500 word essay and getting a few recommendation letters. I was always a pretty lazy (and thus, terrible) student in school. Things haven't changed that much and I'm still pretty lazy so is 'Member of the Commonwealth Honor Society' something that is worth working towards or will Dean's List (which required zero extra work) look good enough on my CV?

Any advice from someone that is either involved in a hiring process on a regular basis or someone that has experience with an honors society would be appreciated.
 
meh, didnt seem to do my any good since graduation. maybe if youre planning on graduate school. im thinking about applying to graduate school, perhaps next year, and i know i can get a few letters of recommendation from professors involved. but we'll see if i even decide to go for it, its all up in the air right now.
 
Is this an honors society or an actual honors program? If it's the former it's a complete waste of money. If it's the latter it might be worth it. I was in one of my business school's honors programs. We took our core business classes with top professors, including the dean, did awesome projects, and learned a lot. I think it has definitely helped my career as it is well known to people in the area. This sounds like it might be the former though, in which case, screw it.
 
[quote name='utopianmachine']In my experience, employers only care that you have a degree. All that other stuff is just filler.[/QUOTE]

That has been my experience thus far as well but I get bored and easy so I move around a lot. The 'who you know, not what you know' factor doesn't help me when I don't know anybody in the area yet so I'm trying to make my resume stand out a little (without doing needless extra work.)

[quote name='RAMSTORIA']meh, didnt seem to do my any good since graduation. maybe if youre planning on graduate school. im thinking about applying to graduate school, perhaps next year, and i know i can get a few letters of recommendation from professors involved. but we'll see if i even decide to go for it, its all up in the air right now.[/QUOTE]

Right now seems to be a pretty good time to go to grad school although I know a lot of employers have stopped reimbursing tuition (or at least cut down on the %). Grad school was something I was planning on doing and I didn't think about the fact that this could help me get in somewhere half-decent. I guess that is another thing to consider, thanks.

[quote name='Dead of Knight']Is this an honors society or an actual honors program? If it's the former it's a complete waste of money. If it's the latter it might be worth it. I was in one of my business school's honors programs. We took our core business classes with top professors, including the dean, did awesome projects, and learned a lot. I think it has definitely helped my career as it is well known to people in the area. This sounds like it might be the former though, in which case, screw it.[/QUOTE]

It is the latter. I was mistaken in calling it a society. The actual name is 'Commonwealth Honors Program' and it involves taking courses like the ones you mentioned. I'm an English major so the courses involved are all high level writing classes. I also take the majority of my curriculum online so I would have to find a way to free up some time to commute to my school. Basically it would be a large increase in time, work, and money and I'm weighing it against the benefits. I don't plan on living in Boston for very much longer so I don't think the bonus of networking in the area will help me very much.
 
I was in Phi Sigma Pi (Honors Fraternity) and it was awesome. I had a great time, made a lot of friends, and I think it really looked good on my resume.
 
[quote name='utopianmachine']In my experience, employers only care that you have a degree. All that other stuff is just filler.[/QUOTE]

This.

I graduated with honors/was in the honors society during undergrad. Have yet to see it do anything for me.
 
It may be worth it, but you will need to check into the program more. If you want it just for your resume, I'd say no, it won't get you anything extra/impress any employers.

However, the honors program at my college has extra benefits that made it worth it for me. Being a part of the program gave me priority registration, and a Honor's scholarship every semester (as long as I maintained a certain grade level). You may want to check out for any extra benefits. Also, being able to take courses from high level professors may be worth it, depending on your college.

Overall, unless there are extra benefits, paying extra money to do more work that will result in no benefit (resume wise) doesn't seem worth it.
 
It looks good on resumes for grad school, law school, med school etc.

But other than that, unlikely any employers would really care.

That said, I do 100% agree with the others that it may be worthwhile if you're after more than resume boosting. Honors classes tend to be taught be top professors, be smaller classes, have classes with other bright students who actually care about learning etc. So it can be worth it for learning's sake for sure.
 
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I was in the Honors program at my University. It involved taking Honors versions of our core curriculum and taking special classes that only Honor students were allowed to register for. We also had priority registration over all the other college students. Also, it required that we keep our GPA above a certain level in order to stay in the Honors program. In the end, it didn't really help my resume, but it was cool to attend the special honors-only classes. My most memorable class in my entire college career was one of these honors-only classes, where the professor taught us life lessons that I still use to this day.
 
I don't think it could hurt to be part of an Honor's Society. If anything, you can get involved and meet all kinds of new people. By doing so, you are networking and giving yourself more possible opportunities down the road.
 
Sounds like something you should definitely look into. The business school honors program I was in was excellent. Oh yeah, and priority scheduling if your college offers it for honors students kicks fucking ass.
 
[quote name='cRodz']what do you mean by honors society or an actual honors program?
Is there a difference between these?[/QUOTE]

Honor's society are those things were you just get a certificate and your name in a book for a fee.

Honor's program is being admitted into an honor's program in your school where you take special honor's sections of courses with other honor's students etc.
 
thank you for that.

i think i need to ask around my college and see what they will offer me.
I just transferred in and got into the dean's list this last semester.
I always wanted to enter into "Honors" whatever it was but i became confused when i saw this thread.

Maybe, i should ask around on my college and thanks for clearing it up a bit
 
[quote name='cRodz']thank you for that.

i think i need to ask around my college and see what they will offer me.
I just transferred in and got into the dean's list this last semester.
I always wanted to enter into "Honors" whatever it was but i became confused when i saw this thread.

Maybe, i should ask around on my college and thanks for clearing it up a bit[/QUOTE]

I didn't even know it existed until I got a letter/invitation in the mail. My girlfriend told me she was in it when she went to college but when she took classes abroad for a year they dropped her for some reason (I don't know exactly why, I tune out when she speaks if I see something shiny :\) Good luck with your search.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice everyone. I think I'll join and see how it goes. It won't cost me any money until I actually start with the honors curriculum so right now I'm just spending time on getting the letters of recommendation and writing the essay.
 
Having been in both the honors program and honors societies in undergrad, I absolutely agree with all that's been said.

Honors programs = well worth it.
Honors societies = pointless resume padding.

As a universal rule, all the best classes I took in college were honors sections. At some schools (including mine) there are not only honors sections of regular classes, but also unique courses specifically designed by the professor. I took one such class called Envisioning the Future of World Politics which was basically reading a mix sci-fi novels and poli-sci texts and then discussing hypothetical future world orders. I never would have had the chance to do that if it weren't for the honors program.

As for honors societies.. I got a pin.
 
Yeah, my membership in Tau Beta Pi hasn't meant shit. I was also part of the honors program, but they had few courses that related to my major. I ended up taking one concerning the nature of knowledge taught by a very smart philosophy professor that was a lot of fun and intellectually challenging. That being said, what worked best for me was being part of my industry's technical society (IEEE). It basically landed me my internship that became a job.
 
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