Honors

CLT offers an honors program that requires an additional 6.5 units of course work. Students who have attained a 3.7 grade point in courses in the major are encouraged to apply for admission to the honors program as early as the second semester of their sophomore year and no later than the beginning of the second semester of their junior year. Students seeking CLT honors have two options: honors by thesis or honors by course work. We expect that most CLT honors students will complete their majors with a thesis.

For most students, the honors program will begin in the fall of the junior year, when students enroll in a course in Theory and Research Methods that culminates in the production of a substantial research paper and oral defense. This course is open to students across the humanities. (For students who decide to pursue honors belatedly, the Theory and Research Methods course may be taken during the fall of senior year.)

In the spring of junior year, students pursuing theses will enroll in a short course of four workshops that address how to refine a thesis topic. The following year, this cohort of CLT honors students will complete their thesis in two semesters of highly collaborative workshops.

In a few instances, CLT honors students will forego a thesis or creative project and will instead enroll in two more 400-level CLT courses, with a capstone essay reflecting on the coherence of those advanced courses or on the friction between them.

Students may be awarded honors, high honors, or highest honors based on the quality of their honors capstone materials. Please note that CLT honors are separate from Latin Honors.