Departmental Honors
Where to Start
Are you interested in digging deeply into computer science? Do you want to work with a faculty member to expand the boundaries of what we know? Are you thinking about whether graduate school is in your future? If any of these are true, then departmental honors may be for you!
Students doing departmental honors work with a faculty member to define a research topic, investigate it, write up their findings, and present them. You take a total of nine credit hours to earn departmental honors. Six of these hours are for courses you take for honors credit (generally graduate courses), while the other three are for your honors thesis. These three hours are generally split up over two semesters, with one hour in the first semester, and two hours in the second. This gives you time to identify your research topic, put together an initial research plan, and start digging into the topic (hour one, in the first semester), then finish your research, write it up, and present it (hours two and three, in the second semester). The two courses you take for honors credit can generally be counted as electives and also can apply towards the Accelerated Master’s Program if you are also interested in pursuing that.
To start, please see the page on the departmental website about honors. There you can find information about applying to the program, including the form you need to complete to apply. That page also includes links to the forms you need to register for honors thesis credit and a link to the current version of the thesis template. This page provides additional information and links to useful forms you will need as you move forward with your work on your thesis.
The Prospectus
At the end of your first semester working on your thesis, you will submit a prospectus. The prospectus includes:
- A working title for your thesis;
- a clear statement of your research question(s) (what are you looking into? what do you hope to find? what don’t we already know?);
- an overview of existing work in this area (what have people already done? what approaches did they use?);
- a description of the research you plan to undertake to answer your research question(s) (what do you actually plan to do? how does this differ from the existing work that you mentioned in the prior point?).
You can find a LaTeX template for the prospectus here: COMING SOON
You can find a form for submitting the prospectus here: Prospectus Submission Link
The Thesis: The Second Reader
Before you register for your second semester of thesis (CS 4510), you will want to identify a “Second Reader”. This is another member of your thesis committee that will eventually need to approve your thesis. There are several things to keep in mind when thinking of who to ask to be your second reader:
- The Second Reader should generally be a tenured or tenure-track faculty member, although exceptions can be made (but these exceptions need to be approved, check with Dr. Hills first).
- If you are not also doing University Honors, the Second Reader can also be a member of the Computer Science Department, although you can also select a member of another department if your work is cross-disciplinary in nature. Again, check with Dr. Hills first. If you are doing University Honors, the Second Reader should be from a different department. See the Steps to Complete Your Honors Thesis page for further details.
- The Second Reader can be someone with similar research interests to those of your mentor (the Thesis Director). However, you may also want to pick someone that has experience that is useful to your research but that your mentor may lack. Make sure to discuss this with your mentor to see who they recommend.
The Thesis: Writing Your Thesis
An updated version of the template should be available soon. Check back in this space for more details, and feel free to contact Dr. Hills if you want to be notified when those details are available.
The Thesis: Defending Your Thesis
You should be regularly meeting with your thesis director, getting feedback throughout the process. It is also good to keep your second reader in the loop. You should ask them how often they would like to meet, but most likely this will not be as often as you would meet with your thesis director.
Once your thesis director is happy with the state of the thesis, you will want to send it to your second reader. This should be done at least a week before you plan to defend your thesis to ensure they have time to read it.
Your thesis defense is a presentation of your work. A general pattern for the defense is:
- You present your work for about half an hour;
- you have an open discussion period where anyone can ask questions;
- you have a closed discussion period with just you and the members of your committee;
- your committee discusses your thesis and any changes you still need to make (you will be asked to step out of the room during this time);
- you discuss the result of your defense with your committee and the defense ends.
It is common to leave the defense with some requested changes to your thesis. Because of this, you will want to leave time between your defense and the end of the semester so you have time to make those changes and get them approved. Once your committee is happy with your thesis they will sign the cover page of your thesis, which includes signature lines for your committee members, the director of the departmental honors program (Dr. Hills), and the chair (Dr. Fenwick).
To actually schedule your thesis, you should find a time that works well for you and for both members of your committee. You should allocate an hour for the defense. If you are also a University Honors student, you will want to look at the Honors College information on defending your thesis to see how to schedule the room and notify the Honors College of your defense. If you are not also a University Honors student, you should just work with your thesis director to schedule a room for your defense.
Once you have scheduled a room for your thesis defense, send Dr. Hills the following information:
- Title of your thesis;
- name of your thesis director;
- name of your second reader;
- abstract of your thesis;
- date, time, and location of your defense.
The Thesis: Submitting Your Thesis
When you have made all requested changes to your thesis and your cover page has been signed by all parties, you will want to submit your thesis using the Google Form linked below. You should include your thesis (with the original cover page, not the signed cover page, there is no need to insert your signed cover page into the thesis document), your signed cover page (just the one page, not the rest of the thesis), and information about whether you want bound copies of your thesis. See the Honors College page about ordering bound thesis copies for details. If you opt to do this, there is a form you should complete, and you should also provide proof of payment (currently $9 per bound copy). If you are a University Honors student you will actually submit this directly to the Honors College. If you are not a University Honors student you will submit this to Dr. Hills instead.