Pursuing honors studies at Houghton is not just limited to participation in the First Year Honors Programs, East Meets West and Contemporary Contexts. Students also have the opportunity to complete a senior honors project in their final year at Houghton.
Honors projects are minutely detailed research studies of a topic of a student’s choice and are meant to mimic graduate school work. As such, the research and workload of an honors project is very challenging and is meant to go above and beyond standard 400 level independent studies. To even apply for an honors project, students must possess a minimum cumulative grade point of average of 3.25 and a minimum of 3.4 within their own major.
Often, honors projects result from experiences and studies in previous coursework. Senior Hannah Hanover, a writing major, is one such student who has undertaken an honors project this year based on her experiences studying abroad. After taking part in the Balkans semester last fall, she chose to write a historical fiction piece based around Jasenovac, a World War II concentration camp operating in the former Yugoslavia. Hanover said, “I was fortunate enough to visit the site of the camp while in the Balkans, and the museum there was very helpful and powerful in its scope.”
Sydnie Cunningham, a sociology major, has also completed an honors project that has resulted from previous study. She completed “a project examining how romantic roles and socioeconomic status influences women’s occupational choices in STEM fields.” This topic was partially inspired by collaborative research on similar issues regarding that subject. Likewise, Bill Clunn, a political science major, pursued an honors project entitled, “The Militant Politics of Poverty Policy; Flight Fight, Policy, and Rights” that was inspired after an internship he had completed during the Buffalo City Semester.
Overall, Hanover believes that the experience of the honors project has greatly impacted her future academic and career goals. “I wish to study the mid-20th century literature stemming from various conflicts in Europe, mainly Eastern Europe, and work at a university in the future,” said Hanover, “As a fiction writer this was an exercise in exactly what I wish to write – historical fiction examining lesser-known conflicts (mainly in Eastern Europe) that could help Westerners understand the mindsets and values of those entirely unlike themselves.”
Clunn noted something similar, “Initially, I was interested in pursuing criminal law in grad school, but after completing this project I am now very interested in pursuing studies in poverty. I am going to be attending a law school in North Carolina where poverty is an important issue.”
Overall, the participants in the honors project recommended the experience. Cunningham and Clunn noted the benefits of completing a mock graduate study experience. Hanover also said, “Writing an honors project is an excellent way to discover your academic style. I realized many things about my work process that I can now attempt to remedy. It teaches you the flaws in your time management, the frustrations of prolonged projects, methods needed to push past writer’s block, and gives one a taste of graduate-length work.”