Why Pursue Honors FYE (First-Year Engineering)?

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As a freshman in Purdue’s John Martinson Honors College, I often get the question “Why Honors?” Well, future Boilermakers, it’s your lucky day because I’m going to answer that age old question and leave you with another one: “Why not?”


ENGR 16100/16200

Instead of taking the traditional First Year Engineering courses such as ENGR 13100, EPICS, or VIP, Honors FYE students take ENGR 16100, or the Goss Scholars Engineering course. This course, while more challenging than the typical FYE, also covers a multitude of topics. Students learn not just about engineering careers and practices, but also skills in coding, physics, and statistics. In fact, students who take both ENGR 16100 and 16200 also receive credit for PHYS 17200! Honors students also receive four honors credits for ENGR 16100 and 16200 each. This means that by the end of your first year, you will have 8 of the 24 honors credits needed to graduate with Honors, just from your first year engineering course!

HONR 19901/2

As a freshman in the Honors College, you will also be required to take HONR 19901/19902, or Evolution of Ideas I and II, your freshman year. These courses are one credit hour per semester; however, they only meet the first eight weeks of the corresponding semester twice a week, for a lecture and a recitation. Students are put into classes with different themes, which we explore throughout the course while developing different deep reading, critical thinking, and creative problem solving skills. Some themes from the Fall 2022 semester include Privacy, Genes, Maps, Intelligence, and many others! This past fall, we worked in groups with a peer mentor who led us through exercises and completed several projects. It was a great way to develop those important teamwork skills! Finally, these classes are located right in the Honors College buildings, which is a very convenient location for students.

Housing

If you choose to pursue Honors, you might just have the chance to live in the Honors College and Residences! These buildings, located near the academic campus, house many of the Freshman in the John Martinson Honors College. For the 2022-2023 school year, the larger Honors North building is Co-ed, while Honors South is female only. Honors students may also be put in other dorms, such as the suites and semi-suites of Winifred and Frieda Parker halls, located just across the road from Honors North.

Honors North and South were opened in 2016 and are home to roughly 800 students each year. While most Freshmen that live here are housed in doubles, there are also some singles and triples available. There are several bathrooms on each floor, with about eight rooms to each bathroom. In South, one bathroom has two showers, two stalls, and three sinks, meaning that there is plenty of room for everyone. There are also several lounges on each floor, which are often used as study spaces or community spaces to just hang out. Other amenities include a laundry room in each building, a recreational room, two music rooms, an art room, and a tunnel that connects the two buildings!

The Community

One of my favorite things about the Honors College is the community. Living in the Honors College residence allows me to meet and live among so many other majors. I have friends not just in engineering, but also in things like pharmacy, pre-vet, biomedical health sciences, and speech language and hearing sciences! My floor also has floorwide events where we can come together and do crafts, eat candy, or just hang-out (my personal-favorite event was reverse-trick-or-treating: my RA’s brought candy right to my door!). The Honors College itself also hosts many events, such as a Leadership Development event, a pumpkin painting contest, and our very own Yule Ball!


All in all, being part of the Purdue Honors Engineering program has been incredibly beneficial. I’ve gotten hands-on experience, practice in critical thinking and real-world problem solving, and made so many memories in just my first semester here at Purdue. Is it hard? Of course. Honors is meant to challenge you and provide an even more prolific education on top of what you are already receiving at one of the best engineering schools in the country. Is it worth it? Absolutely. So, remember the next time you ask yourself, “Why Honors?” that the real question you should be asking yourself is “Why not?”

Gabi Layman, FYE '26

Recruitment Project Committee


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