The Honors curriculum is a four-year program sequentially structured to introduce and then build upon a set of skills, methods, and academic interests. The senior-year research project provides a capstone experience for each student; many students describe it as one of the most memorable aspects of their undergraduate education. The rest of the curriculum builds toward that experience while at the same time offering some the most challenging courses on campus.

You must take a total of 18 hours of Honors courses and maintain a GPA of 3.0 in those courses (3.2 is required in your general coursework) to remain a member in good standing in the program and to graduate with honors. Your sequence of courses and credit requirements break down in the following way:

First Year

During the first semester, students apply to the program. In the second semester, they are required to take a course for all first-year Honors students. Honors 101 is an intensive seminar that delves into many of the world’s greatest works of literature, political philosophy, intellectual history, and science. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, and Sophocles; selected writers of the Bible and other religious texts; Montaigne, Shakespeare, Goethe, Marx, Darwin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Freud, Woolf, Toni Morrison and Nadine Gordimer. Students are expected to read some of these works during Christmas break in advance, and can expect lively discussion in the classroom This course also introduces students to library and field research, as well as to creative projects, and helps to acclimate them to the theoretical and practical approaches of their subsequent work.

Second and Third Years

Students take a minimum of three Honors courses (two must be at the 300 level), each of which will serve as intensive studies in a given topic or field(s). These courses are housed in departments throughout the campus, and include some of the most popular and intensive offerings in the university’s catalog. “Does God Exist?”, “Understanding the Holocaust,” and “Gender, Globalism, and Islam” are just some of the courses you can expect to take as an Honors student. (Some of these courses fulfill GP21 requirements, others serve as electives; check your catalog or with the Honors director to determine how each course will fit your requirements.)

In general, 200-level Honors courses are introductory in nature; they focus in greater detail on some of the great ideas and events encountered in Honors 101. These courses introduce students to primary artistic, legal, philosophical, scientific, and theological events, thinkers, and works that continue to shape our contemporary world. 200-level courses often examine the historical contexts in which forms of knowledge and cultural practices arise.

300-level courses may focus on similar topics, but they do so with an intensified focus and with more demanding research requirements. A single book or author, a scientific theory, or a world-changing event or idea, may be addressed; students are expected to complete a significant project in these courses.

Fourth Year

In the first semester of their junior year, Honors students attend workshops to help them prepare their thesis proposal. In the second semester of that year, their thesis proposal is due and is reviewed by the Honors Council. Upon approval, students begin assembling their Honors committee. Honors 401 is a three-hour course in the fall semester that enables students to begin their research; Honors 402, taken in the spring semester, enables students to acquire two hours of thesis credit for completing, presenting, and defending their final project.

Below is a chart of a typical Honors curriculum: