Program Requirements
- Maintain a 3.3 overall Cal Poly Pomona GPA: GPAs are checked by the honors college once a year, at the end of each spring quarter. If your GPA is below 3.3 you will be placed on a two quarter conditional probation period to bring your GPA up (you may only do this once). If you are dropped from the honors college because of your GPA, or if you choose to leave, there is no penalty. If you choose to leave the honors college, please schedule an exit meeting with the director or associate director to sign a voluntary withdrawal form. The honors courses you have taken will appear on your transcript, but there will be no mention of your having either been in, or having left, the honors college.
- Take and pass honors courses: a total of 7 if you joined the honors college as a freshman (having completed 0- 45 units before joining the honors college), 5 if you joined as a sophomore (having completed 46-90 units), 4 if you joined as a transfer student with junior status (having completed 91 or more units). You may take as many honors courses as you like over the minimum number. You must enroll in an honors courses during your first quarter or second quarter in the honors college.
Freshmen & sophomores - Try to take as many of your lower division General Education courses as possible as honors courses. This doesn't just fulfill your honors requirement, it's a lot more interesting and engaging than regular GE. Non-honors GE courses often have 70 or more students, whereas honors GE courses have no more than 20 students. Honors students who have taken them are telling us that they've really enjoyed them, and we hear from the faculty members that they love teaching honors students.
- Senior Capstone Project: One of the honors courses you are required to undertake is a capstone senior project in your major. The capstone is an honors version of the senior thesis or project required by your major (usually a course numbered 461 or 462). Undertaking a capstone project will involve:
- Junior Year – Spend time thinking about what you want to do for your project, talk with faculty to find an advisor and get ideas and guidance. Get a commitment from a faculty member to be your advisor and sign off on your honors contract. File your honors contract with the honors college in spring for the fall quarter of your senior year.
- Senior Year - Fall and/or winter quarter, undertake your project while enrolled, via honors contract(s), in the appropriate course (this will vary by major, but will be 461/462 for many majors).
- Senior Year Spring Convocation - present your research or project in poster format at the honors college spring convocation (held middle of spring quarter).
- Units of Coursework: Complete a minimum of 36 units of coursework per year (including summer).
- Community Service: Complete 20 hours of community service per year. Students can choose 10 hours of service on their own and fulfill the other 10 either on campus or by using opportunities listed on the honors web page (the honors college student club provides many opportunities for groups of honors students to do community service projects together). Or, come see the Director or Assoc. Director for a waiver on this ‘10/10’ hours requirement.
Submission of paperwork for community service hours are due by the mandatory week 2 meeting the following quarter. If you are planning on completing some or all of your 20 hours during the upcoming summer you must still turn in a form describing how and when you plan on completing your hours.
- Communication: Stay connected with the honors college - communicating in a timely fashion is essential and includes:
- Attendance at quarterly meetings – Quarterly meetings are held during the second week of each quarter. Four – time slots are offered, each student needs to choose one meeting to attend.
- New students are also required to come into the honors program office once per quarter for their first year for an individual 15 minute meeting with either the director (Dr. Suketu P. Bhavsar) or the associate director (Dorothy Fleck). These meetings are meant to help you develop an advising relationship with the director and associate director.
- Reading and responding to honors college emails that are sent to your @csupomona.edu account.
Registering for honors courses
Use the two year schedule to plan ahead for the honors courses you will take. Check the honors college web page and keep an eye on your Cal Poly email for information on the current and upcoming quarter’s honors courses. Each year we plan to offer at least one course in each of the lower division GE categories, and at least 2 courses in each of the upper division categories (B4, C4, and D4). We have to work with individual departments in order to offer each course. Some departments are happy to offer honors courses, and other less so, so it is sometimes hard to offer every GE course that honors students would like to take as an honors course.
Once the honors courses for an upcoming quarter have been listed with times and instructors, e-mail Theola Johnson at tsjohnson@csupomona.edu with your course requests and bronco ID number. Be sure that you have fulfilled the prerequisites for the course that you wish to take. Your name will be added to a list of students who will be allowed to register for the honors course. Unless you contact us ahead of time, the computer will not let you register for the course. You will register for your honors course online at the same time that you register for your other courses.
Priority registration
Each quarter we apply to get priority registration for students who are taking honors courses, and/or who have particularly tight schedules, and/or are juniors or seniors. However, the committee that controls priority registration is very strict. You must fill out the required paperwork and turn it in to Theola Johnson on time to be considered for priority registration.
Every honors student who requests priority registration has to show that he or she really needs it. They have to submit a weekly schedule showing their class and work schedule. Be sure to highlight honors courses that you are taking and courses that are needed for your major that are offered infrequently.
The deadline for these forms for winter and spring priority registration will be during the first week of the previous quarter. This means that week 1 of fall quarter is the deadline for winter quarter, week 1 of winter quarter is the deadline for spring quarter. For fall quarter priority registration the deadline will be towards the end spring quarter. Theola will send an email when priority registration information becomes available. The required forms will be sent as attachments in the email, and will be available on the honors college web site.
Honors Contracts
We are working with departments to try to offer non-GE courses, especially in majors that have a lot of honors students (if a department has only a few honors students it is difficult to offer honors courses in that major). But, failing this, if you are a junior or senior, there is the option of doing an honors contract. This is when you work with a professor of a course in your major to create an individual honors experience, and you get honors credit for the course. This is a possibility if nothing else is available to you in the way of honors courses. To do this you must:
- Ask your professor well before the deadline if he or she is willing to work with you.
- Come up with a plan: what will you do in this course that will make it an honors course for you? Don't just think in terms of more of the same (more papers, more homework, etc.) but something different. If everyone else in the class is doing weekly assignments, could you do a research paper? Could you meet the professor in his or her office hours regularly? Could you do an individualized field trip or attend a conference?
- Write out the plan in the form of a contract, which you and the professor both sign. Once you have signed this, you cannot back out and ask just to take the course for normal credit. Blank contacts are available online.
- Deadline - Contracts must be turned in by the end of week 10 of the previous quarter. This means that week 10 of spring quarter is the deadline for fall quarter, week 10 of fall quarter is the deadline for winter quarter, week 10 of winter quarter is the deadline for spring quarter. This deadline can not be extended by the Honors College. The registrar's office has to create a separate course number just for you, with an honors designation. Without this step, the course will not appear on your transcript as an honors course.
- Please don't plan on doing more than one or two honors contracts. We have heard from other honors programs around the country that students often find contracts to be less satisfying than actual honors courses.
Benefits
- Small honors classes taught by top faculty.
- Use of the honors common room (building 1-201 with study space, wireless connections and computers dedicated to honors student use. The room is open 8-5 M-F. Occasionally we have to close the room for meetings.
- Honors college completion designated on your final transcript (recognized by grad and professional schools as a sign of outstanding achievement)
- Organized activities, field trips, social get togethers.
- Assistance in applying for study abroad, national student exchange, graduate school, internships, and professional school.
- A community of honors students.
- Mentoring and advising; and much more.
