inside an honors student

there is no true recipe for an honors student. each honors student is unique, as every student is unique. However, there are some attributes that any true honors student should possess.

the key ingredient: hunger
the hunger for knowledge. it is not love for competition or the ability to ace a test that matters. it is the desire to learn; to break down barriers and expand horizons. it is not the need to organize every factoid safely in notebooks or in the compartments of one's brain; but the gumption to recognize the chaos and the patterns and accept that no human is infallible. the honors student will not necessarily earn good marks in classes, but they will do the best they can to squeeze all of the information out of any source. the honors student does not do their work for the rewards or accolades received but to gain new knowledge.

next on the list is empathy. this goes hand in hand with humility. the honors student may recognize kindred spirits, their intellectual matches. and they may see those who appear less intelligent than themselves. The honors student looks at both of these groups and sees the similarities. each person has their faults, including the honors student. recognizing the similarities helps the honors student share what they know while accepting that their own knowledge is incomplete. thus, the honors student is humble.

one thing to remember is that all honors students, as all other student, have their difficulties. Sometimes, an honors student hits a low, skips a class, forgets homework, and at some points simply does not care. but what separates the honors student from the other students is recognition of these times; the pride to make no excuses for their pitfalls; and the strength to get back up and try harder the next time around.