University Honors Program. Join us in our new location at Columbia Hall! We are settling into our new space and still waiting on a few finishing touches. The offices and classrooms of the Honors Program are on the lower level of the south atrium in Columbia Hall. Feel free to come in and check out our new student lounge. Has anyone here heard anything about/taken the test for/attended Columbia University Science Honors Program (SHP)? I've heard that it's pretty hard to get into, but that's basically all I know about it. The SHP Website: Columbia University Science Honors Program.

1. Columbia Science Honors Program Essay

Columbia Science Honors Program Essay

The honors thesis advisor is very much like a graduate thesis advisor. The presumption is that the advisor's scholarship or interest will be close to the student’s topic.

The deadline to defend is always the same day that the defense copy is due to the Honors Program Office.The honors thesis defense format is similar to a graduate thesis defense, and in most departments scheduling a time and place is the student’s responsibility. Many departments also ask the student to bring an unofficial copy of their transcript to the defense.

The Honors Program doesn’t need to know when the defense will take place – that’s between the student and their committee.Do encourage your student to schedule their defense as soon as possible and, ideally, not on the last day to defend. Colorado’s weather can be unpredictable, and there’s no room in the thesis timeline for extensions. In addition, if the thesis requires revisions for the final copy, the more time your student has to complete them after the defense the better.One critical note: there is one area where the honors thesis defense diverges from the defense of a graduate thesis.

Whereas graduate students are typically told whether they passed or failed following their defense, this is absolutely not the case for the honors thesis. The student MUST NOT be told what the committee recommendation will be. The Honors Council’s honors recommendation can in some circumstances differ from the committee’s.After the defense, the committee completes the thesis defense form and decides who will write the required narrative (some departments require that the Honors Council member do so, while others prefer the thesis advisor).

The narrative is a letter of recommendation addressed to the Honors Council and written on behalf of the entire examining committee.The narrative must include the following:. when, where and who conducted the defense, with the thesis advisor specified;. a clear statement of the recommendation as well as the vote (if the vote is unanimous, state that explicitly; if the vote is not unanimous, a clear indication of the split must be provided);. a rationale for the recommendation. This should include statements regarding the cumulative and major GPA and the quality of the thesis as well as the quality of the defense.Beyond those requirements, it is typical for the narrative to include pertinent information about the student's thesis, including the argument the thesis makes and how that argument is defended, how the student conducted themselves not only during the defense but during the research and writing phase of their project, and why the thesis is important to the discipline. If the thesis is exceptional within the department's history of undergraduate theses, or more closely resembles graduate work, those types of statements and rationales supporting them are also welcome.The defense form and narrative must be delivered directly to the Honors Program Office or scanned and emailed to.

Please do not use campus mail. While GPA is only one part of the equation, there are guidelines:. A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.3 qualifies a student to be considered for honors, cum laude;.

A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5 qualifies a student to be considered for honors, magna cum laude;. A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.8 qualifies a student to be considered for honors, summa cum laude.While these guidelines qualify a student for consideration for a given level of honors, any honors earned are also based on the quality of the thesis and thesis defense. Depending on the quality of the thesis and thesis defense, a defense committee may recommend an honors designation other than what the guidelines suggest. First, the registration paperwork and attachments (a prospectus, preliminary bibliography, and timeline), and eventually a printed and unbound defense copy of the thesis, then the final copy (uploaded to the ).The defense copy of the thesis is just that - the same version of the thesis that was defended before the committee. This is the copy of the thesis that an honors recommendation is based on. The final copy can incorporate changes suggested by the committee, but any changes made cannot change the level of honors the student may earn. The easiest thing to do is direct your students to the.

The Writing Center also recommends the for writing tips and resources.If your student has a semester or two before they defend, you can suggest they take. HONR 3220 is designed for students from any discipline who will be defending a thesis at least one semester after taking the course. This course also satisfies the upper-division writing requirement; juniors and seniors are welcome.A brief description of the course: “This course introduces honors students to analysis and argumentation as they are rendered in longer prose forms. The course addresses the intellectual and rhetorical challenges of producing a major piece of scholarship, often a section or aspect of your honors thesis, and or a major paper that can be used as a prelude to a possible honors thesis. As such, the course provides excellent preparation for writing an honors thesis. The course explores the intellectual challenges of defining and refining the thesis topic and formulating a specific research question, as well as the rhetorical challenges of preparing a thesis prospectus.”. In Spring 2014, the Honors Program joined, the institutional research repository for the University of Colorado Boulder.

All thesis students are required to upload the final copy of their thesis to the. Individual departments or programs may still require printed copies, but the Honors Program does not.Theses defended before Spring 2014 are now housed in the. Members of the community wishing to access specific theses from the archive will need the thesis title, author’s name, and the semester the thesis was defended. It’s a good idea to do so.

Unlike many universities, who award Latin honors to undergraduates based solely on GPA, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder requires the successful writing and defense of an honors thesis in order to earn Latin honors. As our thesis process is one of the most rigorous in the nation, students who complete this process - typically between four to seven percent of each graduating class - have chosen to go above and beyond many of their peers not only at CU-Boulder but nationwide.

That process and how the student navigated it are well worth talking about.