Learn the Process & Requirements for Specialized Honors
This site provides information for students and faculty about the undergraduate senior honors thesis, which confers Specialized Honors. This site includes the application for Specialized Honors, the complete text of the specialized honors guide and guidance for faculty advisors as well as answers to frequently asked questions, the calendar for the year, and copies of all forms students will need during the senior thesis process.
In addition, if you plan on using human subjects in your research, visit the Institutional Review Board’s policies, procedures and forms page.
Criteria for eligibility and a description of the process and requirements are contained in the specialized honors guide.
Senior theses begin with the recognition of a question you have only tiptoed around during your undergraduate education. You are made to tackle this question by your own curiosity, thereby becoming a mind of your own. As a process of exploration, you develop the critical thinking skills, self-assurance, and independence that employers and graduate programs look for in applicants. It is the most practical and marketable aspect of your education. ”
My honors thesis was a huge topic of conversation during all of my job interviews. Once, when I was telling a managing director who was interviewing what I was doing for my thesis, she immediately got excited and told me that the job I was interviewing for does exactly the type of work that I had done in my thesis. When I mentioned that we also had to defend our thesis in the spring, she was even more impressed because when she wrote her thesis at Harvard, only PhD students went through this rigorous of an evaluation process. ”