The University Honors Program provides many benefits for students in the program, beyond the perk of registering early for classes.

Michael Martin, director of the honors program and professor in the department of family, consumer and nutrition sciences, said honors courses are smaller and provide more individualized instruction with the professor.

Priority registration for classes is a benefit as well, he said. Honors students get to register for their classes when athletes do, so they don’t have as tough a time getting into their classes.

Martin said the requirements for incoming freshmen to be in the honors program are an ACT score of 27 and having graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

Transfer students that want to join the program must have a 3.2 grade point average, and current NIU students looking to join the honors program must have a 3.2 GPA as well, he said.

“Pretty much everyone that meets the requirements is allowed in,” Martin said.

Martin said sometimes students come in as provisional members, and are allowed in if they can maintain a 3.2 GPA. There are two levels of honors students can graduate with, Martin said, including lower division and upper division honors.

For lower division honors, students must maintain a GPA of 3.2 in their honors courses and 3.0 overall. For upper division honors, students must receive a GPA of 3.2 in both areas.

“If they get below the required GPA, we will put them on probation,” Martin said.

To graduate with full university honors, students must take a total of 27 hours of honors coursework – 15 hours of lower division and 12 hours of upper division (300- and 400-level courses), three hours of which are a Capstone project or senior thesis. Martin said 12 hours of honors coursework must be outside the major area.

Bob Norwood, a Career Planning and Placement Center counselor, said having honors on one’s resume shows a higher level of academic pursuit and shows employers that they might be a more motivated and focused potential employee.

Josh Earel, a junior computer science major, said he took honors courses in high school because he thought it’d be more challenging for him. He’s done the same in college.

Earel said being in the program has been beneficial in that in his honors classes he’s been able to talk to the professor more and the professors get to know the students better than they would in a regular class.