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Introduction
| Admission | Requirements
for Completion | How to Apply
The Concordia College Chemistry Department
Honors Program is open to interested and qualified chemistry majors. Those
students having an excellent record in their chemistry courses and a desire to
do chemical research are encouraged to apply. Our department believes that
graduating with honors involves primarily the merit of, not the quantity of,
undergraduate chemistry work. Therefore, we do not require extra courses in
order to receive the Honors in Chemistry notation at graduation and in your
transcripts. We do, however, feel that participating in research is an essential
component in the background of a well-educated chemist.
To be admitted to the Honors Program, the
student must satisfy the initial requirements for admission. These are the
following:
- You must have an average GPA in chemistry of
3.5 or above.
- A Chemistry Department faculty member must
agree to serve as your Honors mentor, which will include being your research
advisor if you elect to do research at Concordia.
- You and your mentor must complete the Honors
Program Application (see below).
Requirements
for Completion
The following are the requirements that must be
satisfied for completion of the Honors Program:
- You must complete at least 150 hours of
supervised research. (Not all of it necessarily during one semester.)
Summer research between the sophomore and junior, or junior and senior years
is encouraged. This research need not be completed at Concordia. (The
NSF-REU program provides opportunities for undergraduate summer research at
institutions all across the country.)
- If the research is taken for academic
credit, the minimum grade must be an A-. If the research is not taken for
academic credit, your mentor and/or off-campus research director will
determine whether your performance is satisfactory for honors.
- You must maintain excellence in your
chemistry courses with a chemistry GPA above 3.5.
- You must write a paper, in scientific
journal style, over your research and background material. The audience for
this paper is the chemistry department faculty. This paper should
be submitted to your mentor by the end of first block of your Senior year.
The paper will be judged by all faculty, and will be returned for revision
and correction as appropriate.
- You must present your work in an Honors
Seminar, to be scheduled during the fall of your senior year, that
consists of a professional oral presentation of your work, as well as the results
and implications of what you accomplished. The chemistry faculty as a whole
will determine whether your paper and seminar are acceptable for awarding
Honors in Chemistry.
How to Apply
The student, along with his/her research
mentor, must complete the Honors Program Application. This form is
available from the department secretary. (A printable copy in PDF format
is available by clicking here.) The completed
form must then be brought to the department secretary.
Students are encouraged to apply for the Honors
Program as early as is realistically possible, preferably by the end of their junior year. The student must agree to allow the Registrar to release sufficient
information to determine whether GPA requirements are being met. The department
chair will be responsible for collecting information and for keeping records.
Records will be totally confidential. The department faculty will formally grant
students honors status for graduation by the end of third block of their senior
year, assuming that all requirements are fully met, and that the student
continues quality work in senior-level courses.
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