It seems to me that engineering programs are de-facto honors programs. They typically have students with higher stats than the general population of their colleges and they usually have a more rigorous curriculum than some other majors.
That said, does it matter whether or not a student participates concurrently in an honors program and an engineering program? Some of the perks of honors are early course registration, but engineers typically have a rigid curriculum guideline to follow. Honors sometimes offers special housing with other honors students, but many colleges now offer engineering LLCs which would probably be more beneficial to engineers than an honors community. The downside of honors is that some programs require additional work, including a thesis. Sometimes this can be integrated with the engineering degree, sometimes it is completely separate.
It would be great to hear opinions from students who have successfully (or unsuccessfully) participated in both and also from students who passed on an honors opportunity. It would also be nice to hear from engineering industry experts about their opinions of the honors designation.
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