Honors Courses

The Honors Program includes two types of Honors designated classes. The first category is Honors Western Heritage, which consists of Honors sections of the required freshman Western Heritage seminars. The second category is the Honors Colloquium. This capstone course in the Honors sequence is taught by a different professor with a new topic each year.

Honors Western Heritage

Students in Honors Western Heritage spend less time working on the basics of reading comprehension, writing papers or making presentations. Honors students are expected to have sufficient understanding of these basic tools, which allows more time for engaging class discussions and activities that create a deeper understanding of the texts. Honors students read the same texts that regular students do, but they focus more on discussing and writing about the deeper ideas and meanings of the texts.

Honors Western Heritage is characterized by student-led discussions that analyze the relationships between the texts and the themes of the course. The students in Honors Western Heritage often feel they have more ownership of the course and more influence on how each individual class session goes. Due to the structure of the course, Honors Western Heritage helps to develop the learning community, which will support Honors students throughout their four years at Carthage.

Honors Colloquium

The Honors Colloquium is the capstone course in the Honors Program, generally taken in the senior year. It is an interdisciplinary colloquium designed to provide opportunities for intellectual synthesis and closure, and to cultivate advanced principles of scholarship. This course is only offered in the spring term. Recent topics have included "Plato's Republic," "Machiavelli" and "Meteorology." This course is required for students who wish to graduate with All-College Honors.

"I entered the Honors Program to raise the bar for myself, and to open intellectual doors that I otherwise might have just passed by."

Brandon Begotka, '05

"At Carthage I found the people and resources to make me a fuller, more well-rounded individual. My studies helped me become more observant, listen more skillfully, and ask better questions." Read more.

Stephanie Coulis, '08
Fulbright Scholar