Honors Project/Thesis

The Honors Project is the culmination of your UMass Lowell Honors experience. The Honors Project prepares you for the level of work expected of graduate students and professionals. Completing an Honors Project provides an opportunity to showcase your presentation skills, critical thinking, analysis, and creativity.

Types of Honors Projects

There are several ways to fulfill the Honors Project Requirement. You can combine your Honors Project with one required as part of your major, develop an interdisciplinary experience, or complete a project in another field of study. We encourage you to use your interests, passions, and purpose to drive a project that can align with your academic and career goals.

Honors Project categories include but are not limited to:

• Community Engagement or Service, for example:
  • assisting with coordination of a climate change teach-in;
  • partnering with a local nonprofit;
  • founding a campus support space;
  • collaborating with Emergency Management; or
  • creating a school mentorship program.
• Problem/Solution, for example:
  • suggestions for improving financial literacy among college students;
  • fabricating a wishbone suspension for a rally car;
  • compiling a resource guide for the Design, Build, Fly competition; or
  • creating a fotonovela to provide health resources for older adults.
• Entrepreneurship, for example:
  • Minds with Purpose; or 
  • Nadified.
• Design/Creative, for example:
  • writing and producing a play;
  • role-playing as a social media influencer;
  • creating tattoo designs;
  • composing an opera;
  • scoring video games and theatre productions; or
  • making a webseries.
• Research, for example:
  • analysis of coastal debris;
  • examining primary source documents about immigrant women in the Bread and Roses Strike; or
  • testing for bacteria on touchpoints in hospital settings.

The Honors Project must be at least 3 credits. Projects that involve new research testing a hypothesis and result in the creation of a thesis document written in the style of an academic article require 6 credits to allow time for data collection and analysis. The Honors Project must include a final written document and public presentation. Depending on the field of study and type of project, you may complete your project as part of a team, with a partner, or as a solo endeavor with the support of your mentor and committee member. A description of project deliverables as well as length and format of the final document must be agreed upon by the mentor and mentee(s) and included in the project proposal. While there is no page requirement, final documents usually run 20-50 pages in length. Contact the Associate Director of Honors Scholarship and Curriculum and/or your Honors Department Liaison with questions. Subject-specific questions should be directed to your honors mentor.

For an examples of past Honors Projects, visit the Honors Project Archives website.

Honors Project Grant

The Honors College will grant up to $500 for materials related to the honors student's project. The number of grants awarded will be determined by available funding. To be eligible to apply, a student must be a member in good standing of the Honors College and must be working on an Honors Project. Research grant application must be submitted by the end of the add/drop period the semester you will need reimbursement. Download the Senior Research Grant Application (pdf).

For travel related to you Honors Project, please fill out the Senior Professional Travel Grant Application (pdf).

General Completion Checklist for Students

• GPA of at least 3.250
• E1 completed for each semester active in Honors
• H1-H6 Requirements completed with a B or better
• Honors Declaration Form submitted to Honors College
• Honors Project Proposal Form and Proposal signed by Mentor and Committee Member and approved by Honors College. View Project Proposal examples.
• H7/H8 courses submitted to Honors College for Transcript Coding
  • H7: Honors Thesis/Project (Part I) or a 3000/4000 Honors Course, or a Graduate Course
  • H8: Honors Thesis/Project (Part II) or One-Semester Honors Project
    • Register for HONR 4910 at the start of the semester in which you will present and submit your project.
    • NOTE: HONR 4910 is a zero-credit course that allows you access to the Honors Project Archive portal on Blackboard and is how the Honors College will indicate satisfactory completion of your Honors Project on your transcript. HONR 4910 DOES NOT take the place of your for-credit H7 and/or H8 courses.
    • An Honors Project must be at least 3 credits. 1000 and 2000-level courses MAY NOT be used to fulfill the H8 requirement.

• Public Presentation of Honors Project attended by Mentor, Committee Member, and Representative of the Honors College
• Final versions of Honors Project materials submitted to Mentor and Committee Member for approval and H8 grade
• Project Completion Form signed by Student, Mentor, and Committee Member submitted to Honors College
• Project document or promissory note submitted to the Honors College (publishing Honors Projects to the online archive is optional)