Dive Deeper Into Nursing Scholarship
The purpose of the Honors Program is to encourage and support intellectually engaged students who wish to apply existing evidence and generate and disseminate new knowledge developed in innovative scholarship toward the goal of advancing the health of individuals, communities, and systems.
University of Connecticut’s Honors Program invites talented and motivated rising sophomores and rising juniors to apply and participate. A minimum 3.4 GPA is required. Honor students conduct a thesis project while working closely with their advisor. This experience provides them with an opportunity to critically examine a phenomenon of interest to them that is also important to nursing and health care.
How to Join
Students can apply to the Honors Program in the early spring of their freshman or sophomore year. Visit the Honors Program website for more admissions information and deadlines.
School of Nursing Honors Program Requirements
As a member of the University of Connecticut Honors Program students will actively participate in academics and co-curricular activities. Students will comply with the Honors Program requirements according to their year of entry into the University of Connecticut.
The SON has additional requirements for students who want to complete Honors in the major, including completing a thesis project of which there are four possible options. Once the Honors student has selected an Honors Thesis Advisor, this faculty member will become their academic advisor. All students receive overall academic advisement from the School of Nursing academic advisors during their pre-clinical years.
The final Honor’s Thesis will be evaluated by both the Honors Thesis Advisor and the Honors Director in the spring of the student's senior year. The curriculum for each of the four School of Nursing Honors thesis options is designed so that work is done each semester, starting no later than spring semester of sophomore year.
Please note, while Honors students may have priority registrations for university-wide courses, they are not allowed an early option for nursing clinical selection.
Honors Thesis Options
This Comparison Table of Requirements for Different Honors Thesis Options is available to assist students with selecting their project.
Other Expectations
Honors students are expected to demonstrate the following behaviors:
- advocacy
- global citizenship
- an ethical approach to research and scholarship
- self-initiative
- independence
- caring for self and others
- a spirit of innovation
- awareness of academic and professional responsibilities within the UConn Honors Program
- collegiality and respect for others
- openness to and growth and change in responsiveness to feedback
- awareness of and compliance with deadlines
- adequate and appropriate preparation for class, lab, research, and interviews
- routine and recurrent communication about achievements or challenges to academic and Honors Thesis advisors
- early, repeated, and documented investigation of academic, research, outreach, leadership, mentor and career options and opportunities using UConn and other provided resources
- engagement in the major as agreed upon by the student and Honors Thesis Advisor
As Honors students in the School of Nursing, Honors students are expected to:
- Participate in regularly scheduled advisement sessions; develop preliminary, semester-by semester plan that will be used to determine progress in Honors Program
- Complete Update on Honors Thesis Progress Form (specific to each type of Honors Project at end of each semester starting spring semester of Sophomore year (provide link) to Director of Honors Program. In order to assure consistent, ongoing progress, students must enroll in NURS 4299, Independent Study, each semester (spring, sophomore year – fall, senior year) for 1-3 Honors credits each semester; a minimum of 4 credits is required and a maximum of 6 can be applied to Honors credits. Students not making adequate progress may be dismissed from Honors program.
- Attend a minimum of one University sponsored thesis preparation workshop before start of last academic year in the SON program
- Include and successfully complete the specific courses in the SON Honors Plan of Study
- Provide an Honors preliminary plan of study for review by November 10 of the junior year. Information about the process and timeline can be found on the UConn Honors Program website.
- Demonstrate “Engagement in the Major” Honors plan of study requirement as agreed upon by the student and the Honors Thesis Advisor, specific to each type of honors project
- All Honors students must present their Honors Thesis at the SON Honors Celebration following the university Honors Medal Ceremony (weekend before graduation)
- Represent Honors Program at one SON Open House
- Complete Senior year, spring semester NURS 4597W course appropriate for type of Honors Thesis
- Register with UConn Career Center’s Husky Mentor Network anytime, but no later than junior year
- Register with UConn Career Center’s Husky Career Link in the sophomore or junior year
- Attend a workshop or complete the UConn Center for Career Development's On-Demand Video Learning “Graduate School Preparation” no later than end of junior year
