Four weeks. Eight classes. A lifetime of memories. The Georgia Governor’s Honors Program (GHP) was truly an experience like no other. As I arrived at the Georgia Southern Campus on Sunday, June 16th, I was filled with a mix of nervousness and excitement. Although I had talked to several GHP alumni and extensively stalked previous GHP instagram pages, I still was not entirely sure what to expect. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I was surrounded by laughter and excitement. Everyone I saw had a smile on their face and was eager to say hello.
My major was Communicative Arts with around 70 students. As soon as I joined the group of other Communicative Arts majors on the first day – affectionately known as “commies” – I realized that everyone around me shared my interests and passions in a way I had never experienced before. Within minutes, I struck up conversations with so many interesting and outgoing people, all of whom were very different yet shared a passion for reading and writing. It was at this moment that I knew GHP would truly be an experience of a lifetime.
I took eight classes in my major throughout my four weeks at Governor’s Honors. Some of the classes I took included Memoir Writing, the Art of Translation and Linguistics, Travel Writing, and Slam Poetry. Each class offered a new perspective, and I learned valuable lessons from every one of them. I was exposed to topics I had never encountered before and might never had explored otherwise. In addition to majors, each student had the opportunity to choose five of their top minor choices and was assigned to one of them. The minors ranged from Entomology to Mythology to Constitutional Law. I was thrilled to receive my first choice: The Art of Presentation and Public Speaking. In this class, we practiced interview skills, public speaking skills, learned effective ways of presenting an academic paper, and much more.
Once classes were over for the day, students had free time until 10:30 pm. Students could use this time however they wanted—napping after a long day, starting homework, reading at the library, walking or running around campus, playing games, and more. Moreover, the evenings were filled with performances, symposiums, and shows organized by the different majors. These events included a 24 hour play, fully written, directed, and performed by theater majors who had exactly 24 hours to prepare, a world issues symposium orchestrated by the social studies majors, a coffee house presentation featuring poetry and prose written by communicative arts majors, a dance performance, and countless music performances across genres, to name a few.
It is safe to say there was never a dull moment at Governor’s Honors. Whether it was walking the half mile to class each morning, playing Spikeball in the quad at night, going on runs around campus, or attending the various performances where each major would showcase their unbelievable talent, I relished every moment of my experience. I learned something different from each person I spoke to and made countless lifelong friendships.
