The Honours College

As an extra-curricular addition to my bachelor’s degree, I enrolled in the Honours College track Bèta and Life Science. The Honours College entails a 30 credit programme with lots of elective space that serves as an extra challenge next to one’s major. For me, it was an opportunity to dive into interests that were not covered in my astronomy major.

Why the Honours College?

Participating in the Honours College was a way to have an extra challenge next to completing my regular courses. Initially, I planned to get both an astronomy degree and a physics degree, but I quickly abandoned this idea as the physics-only courses did not seem as interesting. With the Honours College, there was a lot of freedom to choose courses to my liking. Besides, honours education is often more small-scale and interactive, which I found appealing given the large lecture halls of the astronomy programme.

My experience

Among the courses I chose are some that revolve around personal development, writing fiction, effective management, and a course on didactics involving a small project at a high school. Despite being relatively short excursions into those topics, they were interesting and fun, with often different modes of teaching and assessment compared to what I was used to. Besides, other students in those courses often came from a wide variety of study backgrounds, which turned out to be inspiring and enlightening as well.

The Honours College also opened up some job opportunities, as I first became the student ambassador of the track and later the Honours Academy Assessor.

About the image:
The header image is a picture of the old observatory in Leiden, where many Honours College classes are taught. Considering my astronomy major, it was a fitting location for me to spend some extra time. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.