Our department is known for building great student-faculty partnerships to produce top-notch theses. Students have presented their theses at conferences, won scholarships for them, and used them for writing samples to law or graduate school. 

During the third and fourth years (“junior/senior block”), scholars in our department must complete at least 14 honors credits. Every student takes two, one-credit thesis preparation seminars during the third/junior year, then six credit hours of thesis writing during the fourth/senior year. This leaves six honors credits to complete through other Honors classes or Honors options. 

During the thesis preparation seminar in the fall of the third year, Scholars read a number of honors theses and meet faculty members in order to learn about their areas of interest and current research projects. This is the time that they are matched with a faculty thesis supervisor and develop a research question. In the thesis preparation seminar in the spring of the third year, Scholars also complete a one-credit seminar. They use this seminar to transform their topic into a thesis proposal for a unique study that draws on research literature and uses data and a social science method to evaluate a research question. 

Most of the work on the honors thesis itself is done during the senior year.