Honors courses emphasize seeing the interrelationships between topics and concepts. Students are encouraged to bring their personal knowledge and experience to bear on a question or issue and interact with others during class discussions and group projects. The major focus of an honors class is not on increasing the quantity of the workload. Instead, honors courses increase the quality of the learning experience by exploring topics in greater depth and breadth. As a result, honors students encounter a range of historical, technical and cultural points of view that they may not have experienced in a non honors section of the same course. The emphasis on interactive classroom settings, critical thinking, library research, strong writing skills and group presentations and critiques is extraordinarily valuable to the student because it anticipates the rigor and intensity of the university experience. At the same time, the personal attention extended by committed and caring professors, counselors and classmates creates and sustains the “small and supportive” atmosphere that students come to love about the Honors Program.