Honors Program Project

Julia FinderBusiness student Julia Finder uses her honors project to prepare for her ideal career.

Marcotte
Honors student Marianne Marcotte talks about her Honors project, which involved testing the effectiveness of drugs used by brain cancer patients.

Mason Blankenship on laptop
For his project, Mason Blankenship developed artificial intelligence software that can play the trading card game, Magic the Gathering.

Marjorie Heideman
Music therapy student Marjorie Heideman designed a therapy program that helps people with impaired speech.

The Honors Program project is the capstone of the Honors experience and provides a unique opportunity for students to explore an area of study about which they are passionate. Projects can take many forms depending on the topic - ranging from laboratory research to performances or artwork. Students utilize their projects to launch interests they have for graduate study or to help them expand their resumes for employment. Projects may fall in the following categories:

  • Projects that are unrelated to the senior thesis/research project/production, etc., being done by the student as part of their major requirements.
  • Projects that are an expansion of the student's senior thesis, etc., in their major (typically amount to an additional 20 percent of work).
  • Projects that are identical in subject matter and scale to the senior thesis, etc., in the major but that are of a higher (honors-level) quality than the typical project in that major (as determined by the department).

Honors projects must be presented on campus, although students are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to present elsewhere also. The Honors Presentations will take place in a conference format in early April of the senior year.

Honors Program students may apply for an Honors Program Undergraduate Research Grant to receive funding support for their honors projects.