Program of Study

Students entering the International Honors Program must successfully complete four Honors courses and the Honors Thesis.

Each student must choose four Honors courses out of a pool of approximately 30 courses, open only to Honors students, which fall in various categories, i.e. Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities and Fine and Performing Arts, and should normally be used for satisfying specific Liberal Education and general elective requirements in each student’s major.

Honors courses

In line with the IHP philosophy, Honors courses are interdisciplinary, and they invite students to assume responsibility for their own learning and respond to ideas and issues on a complex level.

Taught in small-class settings, they focus on creative and challenging course themes; they engage students in an active, inquiry-based learning process; they encourage imagination, original thinking and creativity; and they culminate in innovative project-based assessments.

The Honors Thesis

Upon successful completion of their Honors courses, students must undertake the Honors Thesis.

Under the supervision and mentorship of a dedicated faculty member, the Thesis offers students the opportunity to conduct original research, either in a ‘traditional’ scholarly research project format, or in the form of a creative research project that employs a creative medium (e.g. creative writing, fine art, photography, videography, dance, theatre, software design, etc.) and results in an original creative output that reflects scholarly research of the same rigour. The Honors Thesis is completed across two semesters of study and in two stages: the research proposal stage, and the supervised research stage.