IMPORTANT FALL SEMESTER 2020 UPDATE

Welcome back students! We hope that you had a productive and safe summer.

Our office staff is committed to your safety and well-being during the ongoing COVID-19. As the virus continues to spread and in accordance with University of Idaho safety efforts, our office procedures have changed for the fall semester. Please read the letter to all University Honors Program students from the director with important information.

The Honors Program enriches your experience at the University of Idaho.

·Small, enriching, discussion-based courses that count toward degree requirements

·Selective honors program-specific, four-year scholarships

·Special advising to help you get engaged in undergraduate research and prepare for graduate school

·Extracurricular academic activities such as “Fireside Chats” with professors and trips to regional honors conferences

·Free admission to on-and off-campus concerts and movies

·Leadership opportunities such as the Honors Student Ambassador Program. Peer Mentor Program and student clubs

·Supportive campus living groups

Students interested in finding out more about national competitive scholarships, fellowships and grants for summer research, and language program, please contact Dilshani Sarathchandra, coordinator of the Distinguished Scholarships Program at the University of Idaho, at dilshanis@uidaho.edu. Please also visit the program home page.

Many people will never forget their campus life, for it gave them something important for their career. Even though it is very difficult nowadays to attend a college or university after graduating from high school, there are still a large number of reasons to go to college.

In general, college graduates make more money than people who only have a high school degree. Besides higher pay, college graduates also experience better jobs than those who haven’t graduated from college. Many employers expect their employees to have a college degree. College programs provide students with peculiar training that only higher education can offer, giving them popular and valuable qualifications (资格证书).

To deal with heavy college study, you have to be organized. Finishing several different classes is not an easy task, considering that each class covers plenty of materials. If you’re unable to stay organized, there are teachers, advisers and professors there to help you. The organization skills you’ll learn in college will help you succeed in future jobs. Whether you’re solving a math-based problem or make out the main idea of a novel, college classes train your brain to solve difficult problems and will prepare you for problems in the workplace.

Whether you grew up in a small town or in New York City, being admitted into a college or university means that you will meet a great number of new people. Your social skills will improve by communicating with them, which could help you when you enter into the job market. When you take part in classroom activities, study groups and school clubs, you are introduced to intelligent people with whom you could one day start a company or form a life-long friendship.

Study-abroad programs are offered by most colleges and universities and are seen as one of the most meaningful experiences offered during four years of college life. In addition to learning more about a foreign culture, students are required to complete their studies.

By the rivers and under trees of rural South Auckland, New Zealand’s newest and most special school is in class. The weather is fine, so the students would go fishing, and then they would cook lunch on a wild fire. What about homework and lectures? No. “We are called a school but we look nothing like any school out there,” says Joey Moncarz, co-founder and head teacher at Deep Green Bush School.

Moncarz used to be a teacher in the traditional schools. After five unhappy years there in New Zealand, he stopped to found Deep Green Bush School, which was kind of inspired by the Sudbury Valley School in the US. Now It has a roll of eight students, and no classroom walls or tests. Most importantly, he considered that traditional schools were not preparing children for the global problems of the future – such as climate change, so Moncarz founded Deep Green Bush School, a completely different kind of education, based on the skills of hunting, gathering and survival.

The more traditional school skills, such as reading, writing and maths, are learned at students’ own pace, after they begin showing an interest in them. Not, says Moncarz, when the teacher orders it is time to learn.

“We don’t have what you’d traditionally consider problem kids,” says Moncarz. “Our parents saw their kids were unhappy and stressed in traditional education and they started questioning: is it normal or right for kids to come home stressed and unhappy?”

Moncarz insists that the school isn’t an “experiment” in education, and is based on two million years of evidence of how parents have raised their kids.