Honors Program

After completing the Research Seminar, majors with strong records of academic excellence and superior linguistic skills may be invited by their program to pursue an Honors Thesis their senior year. Depending on their program, students either nominate themselves or are nominated by a faculty member. To qualify, students must have an overall GPA of 3.3, a GPA in the major of 3.5, have substantially completed required coursework for the major and obtain the consent of all of the faculty in their program.

In consultation with an advisor from the specific program, the student proposes, researches, and develops an original project related to an area of personal intellectual interest. This may stem from a variety of areas—across the fields of literature, cinema, digital humanities, or translation, or a combination.

Interested in how Fyodor Dostoevsky probes the challenges and contradictions of belief in God in the modern world? Meaghan DeWaters was. Her honors thesis, "The Pathological Believer: Negative Theology, Revelation, and Disease in Dostoevsky's The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov," developed from a paper she wrote in RUS 237 (Dostoevsky), which she expanded in CLT 389 (Major Seminar) and supplemented further in her honors thesis.

For more information on general eligibility requirements for the honors program, click here.