Pros & Cons of Joining an Honor Society

Posted by hawthorn on November 29th, 2017

Honor society plays an integral role in providing academic and professional recognition to high achievers. It helps the students to establish a professional and social network contacts for their members. Many students often face the decision whether or not accept the invitation of an honor society.

Let us have a look if honor society is really worth in the long run.

Pros

Boost the resume – undoubtedly a nice sentence proclaiming one’s academic achievement in the resume increase the chance of getting a job. Though high grades speak a lot, joining an honor society boost the resume even more.

Networking opportunities - No matter how hard a student work, as a student and evolving professional, it is difficult to build a network. Joining a national society of high school scholars offer students to build a strong network of individuals and professionals of same interests.

 Leadership opportunities – Honor societies are also great if you wish to develop leadership qualities. Joining honor societies includes working with leaders and networking with them. In addition, it also gives members chance to attend networking events. Thus, it is ideal to brush up your leadership skills.

Make impact – Like many things, honor societies are only useful when a student gets involved in campus and societies activities.

Cons

 Fees – Honor societies usually charge enrollment fees. Though it varies in different societies, sometimes the price may be higher which sometimes may seem a waste of money.

Limited activities – If a student is not involved in a leadership position, the opportunities of getting involved may become limited to you. Not all honor societies are equal, so many times a student may find himself/herself frustrated with lack of personal impact.

Irrelevant connections – Not all the connections you build with an honor society will prove useful. Even if you attend a networking session, collecting plenty of business cards from different people, there are chances that you will not even look at them. Finding the right person to leverage the right opportunity is difficult, even after joining an honor society.

Commitment – As mentioned earlier, just joining an honor society is not sufficient. You can’t signal them in your resume until you get involved in the real sense. If you haven’t been involved much, you will nothing have to say much about it in an interview.
Even after you go through the pros and cons, always remember that joining an honor society has more advantages than cons.