Honors Major
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- Political Science honors majors must have a minimum of 10 credits inside the Political Science Department.
- Political Science honors majors must meet all requirements for majors (see Course Major section), preferably with the honors versions of Ancient or Modern Political Theory (POLS 100, POLS 101).
- Six of these credits will be met with three (3) two-unit honors preparations which will help prepare honors majors for outside examinations, both written and oral. These two-unit preparations will normally be either a two-credit honors seminar or a "course-plus" option.
- Of these three (3) two-unit preparations, no more than two may be in a single sub-field in the Department, and no more than one may be a course-plus option.
- The "course-plus" option will normally consist of two one-unit courses that have been designated to count as an honors preparation, or in some cases a one-unit course and a one-unit seminar that have been so designated. It is up to the student to arrange a course-plus option with a specific faculty member and to have this approved by the Chair. We strongly advise the students to follow the seminar path.
- To be accepted into the Honors Program students should normally have at least an average of 3.67 inside and 3.5 outside the Department, and should have given evidence to the Departmental faculty of their ability to work independently and constructively in a seminar setting. Seminars will normally be limited to eight-ten students and admission priority will go to honors majors, first seniors and then juniors, including special majors.
- To fulfill the Senior Honors Study requirement for honors majors, students will revise a paper for each one of their Department seminars. These three papers will be submitted to the appropriate external examiners as part of the honors evaluation process and should not exceed 4000 words.
- Other than courses taken the fall semester of first year, none of the credits needed to complete the major may be taken CR/NC; shadow grades for introductory courses taken CR/NC the fall of first year will be used for GPA purposes.
- Majors and minors may take one directed reading within the Department for credit with approval from the faculty directing the read and the Department Chair.
- Barring exceptional circumstances, all honors seminars should be taken for 2-credits.
