Honors Projects

Procedures

The registrar's office deadlines, requirements for honors, and honors project registration instructions can be found at Registrar: Honors Projects. The Bowdoin library's guidelines for formatting the finished honors project prior to submission, important deadlines, and support the library offers honors students can be found at Library: Services for Honors and Independent Study Students.   Below are procedures and a timeline specific to English honors. Additionally, students may attend an Honors Information Session, which takes place in the fall semester.

Thesis Requirements

A student who has maintained an A/B average may decide to become an honors candidate and pursue in depth a topic of interest to them.

In the spring of their junior year, English majors intending to pursue honors should submit an application to the department by the end of the second week of the semester (by 5 PM on February 5, 2027). All eligible juniors will receive the application form by email by the end of the fall semester. The department will assess applications and announce our decisions by February 26, 2027. Please note that any student interested in pursuing honors who misses this deadline can still reach out to faculty with a proposal, but will not receive first consideration.

The honors work is graded and may count (at the 4000 level) as one or two of the elective course units required for the major.

The honors thesis must be a thorough and sophisticated project growing out of:

• course work, as an expansion of it (in which case it may do double duty only with the consent of the instructors involved)
• an English course
• an extension of an English course, or
• a fresh subject not explored in another connection

Strict compliance with the directions for manuscript preparation specified by the library—where the original copy will be permanently filed—is required.

Students contemplating application to graduate school should be advised that honors, or even candidacy for honors, is a highly significant element of their record.