PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The University Honors Program is Maryland's highly acclaimed living-learning program for students with exceptional academic talents. The Honors Program welcomes students into a close-knit community of faculty and intellectually gifted undergraduates committed to acquiring a broad and balanced education. Honors seminars are small classes taught by outstanding faculty who encourage discussion and foster innovative thinking. Each year, approximately 800 undergraduates are invited into this highly selective program.
Students remain part of the Honors Program for all four years. However, most students complete their Honors Citation during the third year. This allows space in their schedules to complete a senior Honors thesis in their department or college honors program, study abroad, enroll in internship or research experiences for academic credit, participate in service opportunities, or take upper level coursework in other disciplines.
THE BEST OF THE BEST ELEMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM:
OUTSTANDING STUDENTS + OUTSTANDING FACULTY
It's all about the people - a truly exceptional group of people. The Honors peer group is awesome — lively students from all majors who are full of intellectual excitement, creativity, diverse ideas, forming lasting friendships. Combine excellent students with superb faculty in small classes and the result is a power-packed and highly efficient learning environment. Honors students and faculty are full of curiosity, productivity, energy, and humor.
HONORS COURSES
University Honors students have the privilege of taking Honors courses as well as regular campus classes. Honors Seminars and Honors versions of regular campus courses ("H-Versions") are open only to Honors students. A diverse selection of Honors Seminars are offered by the University Honors Program on highly engaging, often interdisciplinary topics, and taught by outstanding faculty. Honors Seminars are full 3-credit courses capped at an enrollment of 20 students. Most Honors Seminars fulfill a CORE (General Education) requirement; therefore, they count toward credits required for graduation. Honors Seminars emphasize synthetic thinking rather than memorization of facts.
H-Version classes are courses hosted by academic departments and colleges on campus. They typically have lower enrollments, more sophisticated material, and proceed at a faster pace than a corresponding standard course. Most H-versions have a separate lecture; some join the larger course for lectures and then break out for separate lab or discussion sections.
You may take as many Honors Seminars or H-Version courses as you like; most students take 5 to earn their University Honors Citation.
Because Honors Seminars count toward CORE and H-version courses count toward major requirements or CORE, Honors courses are not extra classes — they are taken instead of other classes that a student would have to take anyway to fulfill graduation requirements. Most Honors students feel that their Honors courses were among the very best classes that they took at the University of Maryland.
SMALL COLLEGE ATMOSPHERE; LARGE RESEARCH INSTITUTION ADVANTAGES
The University Honors Program combines the best of 2 educational options: the sophisticated academic offerings and friendly residential environment of a small liberal arts college nestled within the rich, diverse, boundless opportunities of a big research institution (with the extra perks of the dynamite Terp spirit).
Honors, as your "academic home," provides an instant group of friends and a compatible community as well as enriched courses, so you'll feel "plugged in" immediately, even on this big campus. Over time, you will get connected to loads of other people and activities at the University through your major, extracurriculars, and research or internship opportunities. You will never exhaust all that the University of Maryland and the Washington D.C. metropolitan area have to offer: exceptional scholarly and research experiences (check out Departmental Honors options), faculty at the forefronts of their fields, graduate courses for advanced students, internship opportunities in virtually any arena, and a plethora of arts and entertainment.
CHOICE, FLEXIBILITY, VERSATILITY
A part of Honors that we treasure is the individual choice that each student has in designing his/her education. There are no specific courses and no course sequences required by the Honors Program; the same is true of participation in extracurricular activities sponsored by Honors. Each student selects the courses and activities that best fit his/her interests and objectives. We offer a smorgasbord of intellectual and diversionary delicacies: you decide which to taste.
That said, the ace advising team in Honors ( Mr. Dean Hebert and Ms. Liza Lebrun ) as well as advisors in the discipline of your major are on deck to help you make informed decisions and to talk through options, assist you with academic deadlines and requirements, planning for Study Abroad, or work with you to decide on a major if you have not yet found your passion.
The Honors Program is extremely flexible, so it's a great fit for students of any major (or double major).
DIVERSITY
By any possible measure, the University Honors Program is diverse, and we value that diversity as a substantive educational resource and catalyst for powerful personal growth. Students thrive in an atmosphere in which they may discuss, listen, and understand varied perspectives from people with different backgrounds and ideas. Our goal is to help students develop the understanding, openness, and comfort needed to thrive in the diverse, globalized world that we all share.
BREADTH AND DEPTH
Change is inevitable. Broad exposure to a variety of disciplines and ways of thinking, as reflected by Honors Seminars fulfilling Maryland's CORE philosophy and requirements, will challenge your mind in many different directions and help build a critically thinking, multi-talented, logical, compassionate person who can adapt to professional and personal changes in the decades ahead.
The breadth of Honors Seminars is complimented by the more focused, in-depth exploration of your particular area of interest, i.e. your major, at a leading research institution with excellent faculty and premiere, up-to-date programs.
Emerging from your undergraduate years with the robust combination of
educational breadth and depth and embracing life-long learning and continued
personal growth will equip you to excel in your career(s) and your life.
LOCATION
Location, location, location. The University of Maryland is auspiciously positioned to provide exceptional access to research and internship experiences as well as opportunities of any possible type.
The University's beautiful campus features incredible resources such as the stunning Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts, loads of specialized research facilities, the really impressive campus recreation center AND the nearby awesome advantages of Metro D.C.! The Washington Metropolitan area offers access to a bonanza of research and internship experiences. In addition to the scholarly resources of the Library of Congress, National Archives, and museum collections, loads of research institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, are located within easy commuting distance for students electing to explore research.
Additionally, nearly every business, foundation, branch of government, broadcasting company, trade group, professional organization has an office, if not its headquarters, in the D.C. area, and are eager for undergraduate interns. Internships during the academic year, winter term, or summer session provide excellent opportunities to test drive both your education and your interests in addition to building your resumé.
This exceptional location and close proximity to the College Park Metro Station (on the Green line) also provide easy access to an endless array of cultural events, movies, arts, sports, museums, restaurants, shopping, etc. in the hub of the nation.
LIFE AFTER HONORS
The University of Maryland Honors Program has proven to be a great launch pad for the next step after college.
For example, here is a summary of the destinations of May 2008 University Honors graduates — their plans immediately after graduation:
- Joining the workforce (job in hand) directly after graduation: 40.9%
- Enrolling in graduate or professional school in fall '07: 50.5%
[Of this group, 63% are bound for grad school in an academic subject; 28% will begin medical, dental, or vet school, and 9.4% will enter law school] - U.S. Military Service: 0.5%
- Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Teach for America: 3.2%
- Travel, internship, or unsure of plans: 4.7%
Among the graduate and professional school destinations of May 2008 University Honors graduates are:
- Brown
- Cal Tech
- Columbia
- Cornell
- Duke
- Georgetown
- Harvard
- Johns Hopkins
- MIT
- Penn
- Princeton
- Stanford
- UCLA
- University of Chicago
