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Description
The Honors Program in IT is designed to improve the educational experience for students with exceptional academic abilities and recognize this accomplishment with an honors degree. The honors program comes in two flavors, lower division and upper division. To obtain a degree from IT with honors, only the requirements of the upper division program must be met. The lower division honors program is separate in the sense that it is preparatory, but not necessary for the upper division program. The IT honors program is run out of rm 136 in Lind Hall. Most of the paper work involved with completing the honors degree will be handled by this office, not the Astronomy DUGS.
Within a broad scope established by IT as a whole, the requirements for an honors degree are the prerogative of the individual departments and their degree programs. To obtain an honors degree in Astrophysics, a student must meet the following criteria:
| Degree | Minimum U.D. GPA | Honors Experiences | Senior Thesis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cum Laude | 3.50 | 2 | Normal |
| Magna Cum Laude | 3.66 | 2 | Normal |
| Summa Cum Laude | 3.75 | 2 | Honors |
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Honors Experiences
- Any 4xxx or 5xxx level course in Astronomy that is in addition to the two required and Ast 4994, unless they are being used for Technical Electives.
- Any 2000 level or higher honors course offered by another department or college, subject to approval by the DUGS.
- Astrophysics Research Seminar (Ast 4299, 2 credits). Students attend the weekly Department colloquium and prepare a one page summary of each week's talk.
- Directed Studies (Ast 4990) unless it is being used as a Technical Elective. Note, UROP research may not be used to satisfy a 4990 Directed Studies. One may lead or follow the other and involve the same research program, but a student may not get paid for course work.
- Field Trip or a Professional Meeting. Examples include a science project using Mt. Lemmon, O'Brien or other major observatory, presentation of a paper at a national meeting of UROP students, a poster paper presented at a AAS meeting, etc.
- Any 4xxx or 5xxx level course in Physics that is in addition to the courses required for the Physics and Astrophysics degrees, unless they are being used for Technical Electives.
- Research or Engineering at a corporate site. This must be done within the context of a University (that is, IT) internship in industry or similar program. It may not be just a summer job.
- Summer Research with the NSF REU program.
- Anything you can convince the DUGS is legitimate.
Honors Thesis
All Astrophysics majors must complete a Senior Thesis (Ast 4994). Students in the upper division honors program who plan to graduate Summa Cum Laude must complete an Honors Thesis. An honors thesis must involve more original research or greater depth and scope than required for a normal Senior Thesis. Be sure the faculty member you are working with understands this before starting.
Double majors in Physics and Astrophysics who are also in the Physics Honors program must do a Physics Honors Thesis in order to obtain an Honors degree in Physics. A double major does not have to do a separate Astrophysics Thesis (honors or otherwise) if there is some astronomical content in the Physics Honors Thesis. For example, one student measured the absorption of X-Rays by slabs of aluminum in a industrial laboratory. This student then used these results to predict the extinction of X-Rays from celestial sources due to aluminum in the interstellar medium.