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Hi. My name is Ellie Jordan and I am a sophomore in the Honors Program at JMU. As an Honors student, there are a few things you
need to know as you prepare to enroll in classes for your first semester: Students in the Honors Program are expected to
take one or two Honors courses each semester. It’s important to understand that Honors courses are not more difficult or time consuming than
other classes. What makes them different is that they are smaller than normal classes, encourage discussion and critical thinking, and
take a more explorative direction in the class content. It’s also important to know that most of your
Honors courses will also count toward General Education requirements or your major requirements. In other words, taking an Honors
course will not prevent you from fulfilling other requirements. With all this in mind, there’s no reason not to take more than one Honors course
a semester, if it works with your schedule.To plan your schedule for the first semester, first go to the Honors web page.
To plan your schedule, go to the Honors Program website. Now click on the Fall Schedule link. Here you will find a list of Honors
courses that are offered for the fall semester.
This list contains important information regarding fall classes. The first column, entitled Cluster, indicates which General Education
cluster the course fulfills. You will also see the class number, the class name, which is made up of the subject and the catalog number, the
class title, the number of credits, the days, times and where the class meets, and the instructor for the class.
Let’s take a closer look at the class name. Notice the first class listed is GCOM, communications, and the catalog number is
121H. The “H” identifies it as an honors class. If it was just GCOM 121—without the “H”– it would be the regular, non-Honors version of the
communications course.
While most Honors courses can be identified with the letter “H” after the regular course catalog number, there is an important exception:
GHON 202E. This is the first course in a special two-course sequence that lets Honors students fulfill the nine-credit Cluster Two requirement
with only six credits. These courses are not required for the Honors Program. They are an option specifically designed to help Honors
students fulfill GenEd requirements more quickly, and it is reserved for Freshmen Honors students only. If you choose to take GHON
202E in the Fall, you must take the corresponding course in the spring in order to complete the special six-hour Cluster Two
sequence. If you enroll in GHON 202E but do not take GHON 201E in the spring, you will need six additional Cluster Two credits to
complete that requirement.
In addition, you may notice at the end of the list of courses a number of seminar classes with the prefix “HON”. These are special Honors
Seminars that you will be able to take starting in your second semester. So, you can ignore these courses for now, but you’ll be able to take
them very soon.
During your enrollment appointment, you will use the MyMadison system to enroll in classes. As you search for your Honors class, be sure
you include the “H” designator after the Course Number, or search for “GHON” in the Course Subject.You will learn more about the
MyMadison system and how to enroll in classes in Module 4, but in the meantime, the status of this class is open so you could continue with
the enrollment process.
Best of luck as you register for classes! Once you are registered, you may want to have a look at the Honors Program requirements, which are
on the website at http://www.jmu.edu/honorsprog/wm_preview/requ irements-Track1.shtml. You can discuss the
requirements with your Faculty Freshman Advisor during Orientation. Once again, welcome to the Honors Program, and welcome
to JMU!