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Hello. My name is Dr. Patty Robinson. I am dean of the social sciences and business division
here at College of the Canyons. I am also the coordinator of COC honors, our honors
program here on campus, and I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about the program
with you and answering some questions that hopefully will benefit you in joining the
program.
COC honors is our honors program here on campus. If you go back historically we had another
program on campus many years ago, called HITE, the High Intensity Enrichment Program. About
three years ago, we decided that we wanted to change the model of our existing program
to the current COC honors program. HITE was based on projects, whereby students would
actually set up an honors project with a professor and get credit. As of about three years ago,
we decided that we wanted to change this format, and a group of faculty and myself decided
lets create honors course. And in that time, we actually went through the curriculum process
an designed several courses that are now listed in the college catalog, as well as in your
schedule, that are designated by the” H”. Or in other words, when you sign up for an
honors course, it will actually say Introduction to Sociology 101 H, and on your transcript,
it will actually say Intro to Sociology HONORS. In doing this, what we’ve done is we’ve
created an actual honors program that is course based rather than project based. This way,
students are actually enrolling in courses for seventeen weeks. They’re in a course
with other students who want to take honors courses. These courses actually emphasize
critical thinking, reading, writing, and research skills, and all projects within the course
are given to students. So in other words, we don’t have students who are actually
out doing one course at a time or one project at a time, but they are in fact in the class
together, completing all the assignments. When we look at COC honors and the program
itself, it actually is based on 15 credits or honors credits. So when a student comes
into the program, ideally, what we are hoping, is that he or she will be able to complete
those 15 units by the time of graduation. The student would have to have a B or better
in one of these UC transferable courses.
COC Honors has a website that we hope that you’ll take a look at. Many of these questions
that I am answering today in this orientation are also answered in writing on the website.
Also, we provide different updates and information to students periodically, so it’s a great
place to look to keep up with what’s going on with our program.
I don’t have to tell you that today to be a college student and to transfer to a four
year college, it’s very competitive. More so than ever before, it takes more than just
good grades to get into that university of your choice. For many of you, you are going
to be wanting to transfer to UCLA. Grades are important, particularly when the average
GPA at UCLA right now is a 3.7. If you plan to transfer, you’re going to have to have
at least a 3.7 or above,. At the same time, you are going to want to have something that
is going to put you ahead of the other student. I always like to tell students that when I
was applying to college, it was all about grades. As long as I had good grades, there
was a good chance of getting into the university of my choice. Today it’s not the case. There
are many, many students out there who have excellent GPAs, and you have to show your
university, the one that you are wanting to transfer to, that you have something that
is going to provide that competitive edge. COC Honors will provide that competitive edge.
It will show the university that you are applying to, that you have participated in an honors
program; that you have fulfilled our requirements here at College of the Canyons, and hopefully
that you have been participating in extracurricular activities, that will also give you that added
edge in hopefully getting you into that college of your choice.
First and foremost, go to our website. If you are interested in finding out more information
about the programs, certainly we have a lot of the questions answered on the website.
But we also have an application process. The application is online. You need to fill it
out, provide an unofficial set of your transcripts, as well as provide a statement of why you
would like to join COC Honors. You can bring that particular application to my office,
which is located in SECO 308. Or you can drop it off with Sandra Hernandez, whose office
is right across from mine in 311, and the application will be sent on to one of our
academic counselors for review. Once the review takes place and you are accepted, we will
notify you and then you can come by and talk to me directly about the program. More than
anything, the process is more formal than it used to be, and at the same time, this
provides us the opportunity to meet with you so we can actually look at your academic plan,
and help you get into those courses as soon as you join the program. Ideally what we would
like is if a student is coming in as a freshman, he or she will be able to get into the program
directly, and be able to start taking classes that first semester. However for some of you,
you may join the program in your second of third semester, and that will require me sitting
down with you and looking at your transcripts, figuring out where you are in your own academic
history, and seeing how we can make sure that you get your 15 unit of course credit completed
by the time you graduate.
No. We hope that what you will do when you are involved in the COC Honors program, is
that you will actually take part in some of the extracurricular activities that we provide
through our honors club and our honors societies. I like to tell students that you can think
of the honors program as being divided into two camps. We have the academic or instruction
side of the college, and we have the student services side of the college. When we look
at COC Honors, it is housed on the instruction side. When we look at the honors club, and
we look at the kinds of honors societies that we have here on campus, they are housed on
the student services side. A student can certainly participate in an honors program without being
in an honors club or society. A student can also participate in a society or the honors
club without being part of the honors program. But ideally what we are looking for is that
a student participates in both. By doing that, it gives you that greater competitive edge
to apply to your 4 year college.
There are no dues involved with regard to the COC Honors program. Again, an application
form is necessary. Complete the application form online, bring that, again, up to my office
and we will move forward with the application process.
First and foremost, when we talk about an honors class, we are referring to a class
that has gone through the curriculum process as an honors course. We haven’t just taken
a regular class and modified it, and then called it an honors class. What we have done
is gone through a very rigid requirement or set of procedures, to get that course approved
through the curriculum process. It has been approved by the Chancellor’s office in Sacramento
to actually be listed as an honors course. These courses typically have greater emphasis
placed on critical thinking, research skills, writing, and reading skills. I’m most familiar
with courses coming out of the social sciences, where there’s a lot of reading and writing.
These courses will introduce you, the student, to a lot of materials that you might not be
otherwise introduced to until you are a Jr. or Sr. in your college career. So what we
try and do is to get you prepped early on to some of the requirements that you are going
to need later on in your academic career. When you are talking about the sciences, when
you are talking about some of the other areas; again, greater emphasis on the kinds of skills
and the skillset that you will walk away with, after taking these courses. What we are trying
to do in the program, and we’ve almost succeeded, is that we are creating courses that are coming
out of all of the IGETC categories. Right now, we are more heavily weighted in courses
that are coming out of the social sciences, however we are still working on a foreign
language requirements as well as courses within the arts. So, if you stay with the program
long enough you’re going to see some of these changes, but certainly a student who
comes in during his or her freshman year, will be able to acquire those 15 units honors
credit very, very quickly.
The faculty who are part of COC Honors are some of our best and brightest. These faculty
enjoy working with students, they particularly love working with honors students. Honors
students show the ability to be very committed academically, they are curious, they are hardworking,
and faculty very much enjoy the challenge of working with these kinds of students.
Right now we have about 25 courses that have gone through the curriculum process that are
designated as honors courses. We don’t offer all of these courses in one semester, but
we rotate them. And so, as a student coming in, you would have the ability to take a Psych
or psychology class, a sociology class, political science class. We have now classes in biology
that are offered as honors, we have statistics offered as honors, we have a geology class,
excuse me, a geography class offered as honors. We have a variety of these courses that students
can actually look at and select the kinds of classes they would need to fulfill those
IGETC requirements. Again, remember what we are talking about here are only fulfilling
15 units of UC transferable course work. So again, a student who gets started early in
the program can in fact get these 15 units completed very quickly.
Many of you are going to come to me who are interested in applying to UCLA. Many of you
are also going to ask me, “What is TAP? I have heard about this acronym, what does
it mean?” Briefly, TAP stands for Transfer Alliance Program agreement. It is an agreement
that we have with UCLA and UCLA also has this agreement with 48 other community colleges
up and down the state. Basically it means that if you fulfill the local honors requirements
of the program that you are involved in--so here it would be at College of The Canyons
and that’s the 15 units—you actually can become TAP certified. TAP certification provides
a great advantage for students who are wishing to transfer to UCLA; specifically to the college
of letters and science. In other words, if you are a student who maybe wants to major
in Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Communication Studies, having the TAP certification
is going to allow you to have a priority read of your application. It’s not a priority
guarantee to get into the college or university, but it will certainly give you an advantage
in getting in over non transfer TAP students. So, by getting a B or better, having a 3.5
GPA at the time of application to UCLA, you will in fact then become TAP certified. There’s
a process that I will explain to you when you come to see me, but the big issue being
that, or, the big advantage being that it will provide you with a chance of getting
into UCLA at a much higher probability than a non TAP student. What happens if you aren’t
applying to the college of letters and science? How does that work? Well, let’s say that
you were a student who wants to apply to film school. If however you have a second major
that you are also interested in, and it happens to be in the College of Letters and Science,
you are able to put down that alternate major. So, any TAP student gets to put a second major
down as an alternate which is a great advantage. If I am a non TAP student, I don’t get to
put down a second, alternate major. So for many students who are wishing to apply to
or attend UCLA, this provides almost a second chance at getting into the university. So
it is a huge, huge advantage for students again wishing to transfer to UCLA. One of
the things that I would remind students, is that when you get ready to apply to UCLA,
so that would be in November, if you for example are wanting to transfer for next year, you
will be applying to UCLA this November. You would need to have all of your 15 units of
honors credit completed by the end of the term that you apply to UCLA, so in this case
it will be Fall, 2012. You would also need to have a 3.5 GPA at the time of the application,
and, at that point all of your information will be sent on to UCLA. You would also, as
I have said, want to make sure that you have put down that alternate major, because again,
it is very, very important; it gives you that second chance to getting admitted into the
university. That will also show up on the application itself, so it’s very important
that you mark that box when you apply. The other thing that I want to mention to students
is that in November, UCLA provides its UCLA TAP conference. It’s usually held about
the third week in November, it’s a great opportunity for you to go, learn about UCLA,
learn and find out more about the TAP process. We will have those dates posted on our website
as soon as they become available.