Honors Credit Opportunities
HONORS CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES
Honors College students are not required to take any Honors (UH) courses or complete any way to earn honors credit in particular. Honors (UH) courses are optional and are innovative and unique opportunities to earn honors credit if the course topics appeal to you!
Before you explore Honors College (UH) Course opportunities, please review the note from Honors faculty below on the Honors College's philosophy of teaching and learning.
The Virginia Tech Honors College offers you exceptional learning opportunities, extraordinary courses, and experiences that are not available to students outside the college and its partnerships. These opportunities are quite challenging and require that you stretch yourself beyond what is asked of you in high school and many other university settings. As a VT Honors College student, you should be aware of the following Honors College (UH) Course expectations.
We expect the best from ourselves and our colleagues – and that includes you, our students. We invest heavily in and have high standards for our individual and collective work, and we expect you will do the same.
These standards mean you should expect to –
- Participate as a highly motivated, independent, and reflective learner, who builds collaborative and transdisciplinary skills. You will need to make connections and apply yourself across disparate domains of knowledge and action. This process requires you to play an active role in your learning, work respectfully across disciplines and sectors, and seek connections within and between courses.
- Push the boundaries of knowledge and engage with new and challenging ideas to drive innovation. This is difficult work and requires more effort than you might initially think. Indeed, it is often more challenging than you may encounter in your major. Full engagement means failure is inevitable at times, as is learning from failure for growth and improvement over time.
- Engage in constructive feedback or critique with peers and faculty, enabling you to iterate and improve both current projects and future work. We care deeply about you, your ideas, and your work, and we engage accordingly. We express this care and respect through feedback and critique designed to push you beyond your current limitations and encourage improvement through iteration. No matter how strong your work is, continually ask yourself, “What have I not yet considered? How could I improve this?”. Unlike some of your past experiences with feedback, Honors courses often require you to apply feedback to a new version of the same project so that you can improve it over time.
- Be a strong partner in your education, asking critical, informed, and well-considered questions that will clarify and foster our collective inquiry and innovation. Asking questions about course structures you may not understand, expectations for your performance, and interpretation of feedback is key to success.
- Value our diversity, our rich differences in disciplinary training, scholarly experiences, and approaches to teaching. As our partners in this transdisciplinary effort, you will need to embrace this diversity as well, moving beyond a desire for single perspectives and simple answers.
While there are many other ways to earn honors credit, this guide reviews the following ways to earn honors course credit:
Honors (UH) Courses focus on critical real-world issues and allow motivated students to embrace hands-on learning across a variety of academic disciplines.
UH 1404: Principles of Collaborative Discovery
This is a required course for all new (fall 2023 or later) Virginia Tech Honors students.
How do we begin to approach tackling some of the world’s most complex issues? We start with learning how to collaborate and talk with professionals outside of our disciplines. This required course provides an overview of college expectations, a space to discuss college priorities, practice with approaches to problem solving, and an opportunity to document your academic priorities and professional goals.
Prof. Jones
Whittemore 300
CRN 90639
Tuesday/Thursday 5:00 - 6:15
Mr. Henshaw
Whittemore 300
CRN 90640
Tuesday/Thursday 5:00 - 6:15
Dr. Patrick
Goodwin 190
CRN 91568
Monday/Wednesday 4:00 - 5:15
UH 4974: Justice Challenge, Sustainable Agriculture Colloquium
Dr. Budowle
Tuesday 6:00 – 9:00 (8/26 – 10/28)
OR Wednesday 2:00 – 5:00 (8/27 – 10/29)
Online, Synchronous
Join Honors students and leaders from across the country in The Justice Challenge! Engage with real-world challenges and develop your capacity for civic engagement, innovation, and leadership. Students accepted for this opportunity will earn 3 - 6 Honors credits in the 2025-2026 academic year, beginning by exploring the What, Why, & How of Sustainable Agriculture in a national online colloquium in the fall semester for 2 credits. (In the spring semester, students will then apply this foundational knowledge in a signature experience course to address real-world Sustainable Agriculture issues in a local community.) To participate in the Justice Challenge, please complete this application and contact Dr. Budowle to be added to one of two sections for this course.
UH 2604: Intermediate Honors Quantitative/Qualitative Research Practices
Dr. Lewis
Tuesday 3:30 - 4:45, Thursday online asynchronous
Squires 134
CRN 90653
OR
Dr. Patrick
Tuesday online asynchronous, Thursday 3:30-4:45
Squires 134
CRN 90654
Emerging areas of research often fit at the intersection of multiple fields and require understanding of practices in more than one discipline or field. In this second installment of our four-course research practices series, we will practice project management through composing and presenting a research proposal.
UH 3204: Honors Service-Learning
Sustainability Living Laboratory
Dr. Budowle
Wednesdays, 4:00 - 6:50
Hillcrest 143
CRN 90658
By using the Virginia Tech campus and surrounding community as a “living laboratory,” students will learn about sustainability (e.g., climate action, energy, buildings, waste, food) as a broad topical lens for contributing to meaningful change through service and engagement. Course activities include envisioning and reflection; field trips, including some direct service; student-led discussion facilitation; and most centrally, a team-based, semester-long project emphasizing the research and advocacy aspects of service-learning. This project-based approach supports students as professionals-in-training, partnering with campus and community mentors to complete real-world sustainability projects of clearly defined need for a deeply engaged approach to service-learning.
UH 3504: Honors Transdisciplinary Seminar
Creativity as a Transdiscipline
Dr. Heilker
Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 - 10:45
Squires 134
CRN 90659
In this course, students will learn and employ the ideas and practices of creativity as they relate to some productive form of art or craft they are personally active in, including creative writing, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, web design, making music, dance, even cooking (students may propose additional possibilities). In addition to developing their creative mindsets and habits of production in relation to their chosen form of art or craft, students will explore the extant research on creativity, and examine how creativity works in their majors and/or prospective workplaces, interviewing professionals in those domains.
UH 3504: Honors Transdisciplinary Seminar
Sustainability in Supply Chains
Dr. Kretser
Tuesdays/Thursdays, 12:30 - 1:45
Squires 134
CRN 90660
This course explores the design, evaluation, or improvement of supply chains from a sustainability perspective. Students from any background will analyze environmental, social, and economic concerns in supply chains provided by the instructor or from their own research. Students will participate in collaborative discussions of student and teacher provided cases to better understand the challenges around building sustainable networks that bring products and services from suppliers to customers. Ethical decision-making across disciplines is fostered and unique each offering based on the students in attendance. Application of knowledge and processes from other disciplines is expected.
UH 3604: Designing Protocols for Honors Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Dr. Lewis
Monday/Wednesday 2:30 - 3:45
Squires 134
CRN 90661
Designing a quantitative or qualitative research study is an iterative process full of ethics and integrity considerations. In this third installment of our four-course research practices series, we will discuss the social and medical research design processes through composing a research project protocol.
UH 4504: Topics in Honors Discovery and Innovation Studios
No Blue, No Green
Dr. Ruiz-Geli
Thursday, 5:00 - 7:50
Squires 134
CRN 90670
This course is NOT part of the Honors SuperStudio.
After the impact of “unEarthed / Second Nature / PolliNATION” as a Collateral Event of the 19th Biennale di Venezia International Architecture Exhibition -- what’s next? Honors students conceived their biennale projects to regenerate Nature with an interspecies architecture, and the first stop of this process was Venice. “No Blue, No Green” Studio will enable students to work together as a team of multiple disciplines to imagine a “Glocal Tour." The tour will be site specific, focused on UNESCO’s sites of global warming emergency, and will imagine an intervention engaging communities, activists, and policy makers in cities like Miami, Chicago, Doha, Seoul, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Tokyo and Barcelona.
Watch the video below to learn how to find Honors courses in the VT course registration system.
Squires 134, Honors College Studios
Honors-UAP SuperStudio asks you to work across disciplines and outside your comfort zones to form interest and problem areas, manage teams, and set the scope and goals of projects related to our environment, broadly conceived. In doing so, you will further develop synthesis, collaboration, and communication skills to help you explore your interests, develop portfolio or resume artifacts, and help you land a job. One former student noted: “I talked so much about my SuperStudio project in my interview that I can safely say it helped me land the job. My experience wouldn’t be the same without you!”
If you are interested, please join Honors SuperStudio, now with the fall theme Making our Environment forming the basis for our shared problem exploration! SuperStudio comprises two co-requisite courses that meet Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Wednesday mornings, for four credit hours that count for eight honors credits. We hope to see you there.
If you have questions, please contact Dr. Anne-Lise Velez at aknox@vt.edu.
Students will enroll in one of the following:
Dr. Velez
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 - 3:15
CRN 90669
How do cultural conceptions of rights, public opinions, and environmental policy relate to each other and shape land use patterns and cultural patterns of interaction? If this sounds interesting, sign up for the collaborative four-credit Honors-UAP SuperStudio [CRN & UH 4504 + UH 4514]. In it, you will start synthesizing policy issues and relevant sociocultural changes for non-experts as you work in a multidisciplinary team to identify a topic on which to focus your semester project. At the end of the semester you will have at least one great project for your portfolio and great experience communicating to different audiences.
Prof. Stephens
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 - 3:15
CRN 91511
How do we navigate competing values and deeply ingrained patterns of understanding and behavior to build our next economic, political, and social systems? How do we build the collective capacity necessary to combat wicked problems? If you want to explore how to think through these thorny questions, please join the collaborative four-credit Honors-UAP SuperStudio [CRN & UAP 4914 + UH 4514]. In this course, you will examine how our emerging understanding of human dynamics like trust and power interact with the human imagination in our efforts to remake our systems and confront dominant narratives. By the end of the semester, you will develop a project with an interdisciplinary team of students that allows you to translate your new understandings into an impactful portfolio product.
Dr. Budowle
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 - 3:15
CRN 90667
How do we approach complex environmental, social, and economic challenges at multiple scales—globally, at the community-level, and in our own professional and personal lives? If this sounds interesting, sign up for the collaborative four-credit Honors-UAP SuperStudio [CRN & UH 4504 + UH 4514]. Students will articulate and critically reflect on their own assumptions, values, worldviews, and hopes for just and sustainable futures. We will then explore foundational concepts in sustainability and environmental justice through the lens of a cultural anthropologist who uses community-based participatory and transdisciplinary approaches.
Prof. Jones
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00 - 3:15
CRN 90668
A pioneering course in disruptive innovation, co-created by a seasoned industrial designer and an innovative architect, is dedicated to bridging diverse disciplines, from graphic design to fashion, and from stage design to landscape architecture. If this sounds interesting, sign up for the collaborative four-credit Honors-UAP SuperStudio [CRN & UH 4504 + UH 4514]. Rooted in a rich blend of practical experience and theoretical exploration, it places a strong emphasis on sustainability and ethical design practices. The course celebrates the transformative power of design to catalyze change, encouraging students to transcend traditional boundaries and embark on a journey of discovery and creativity. This prepares students to make a significant impact as future professionals.
Students will ALSO enroll in:
Dr. Velez, Dr. Budowle, Prof. Jones, Prof. Stephens
Wednesday 11:15 - 12:05
Squires 134
CRN 90671
In this course, you will further develop the teamwork, collaboration, synthesis, and communication skills that will help you land a job. By the end of the semester, you will work with a variety of students from multiple majors, analyze climate and community-related topics through critical reflection, and create a project for your portfolio or resume.
If you have a particularly busy semester planned — or are new to the Honors College — UH 2124: Honors Reading Seminars offer an enjoyable, low-pressure way to earn honors credit. We have several offered throughout the week focused on a variety of fun and interesting topics to explore!
Honors Reading Seminars are small, discussion-based classes in which students read about and explore topics of interest; practice critical reading, thinking, and communication skills; and build community with other Honors students. Reading seminars are taught by the Honors Peer Educator who proposes the seminar topic. Classes meet for 50 minutes, once a week, and earn participants 1 Honors credit. Grading is Pass/Fail only.
Fall 2025 Honors Reading Seminar topics will be announced in April once the Peer Educator application process is complete.
Questions? Please reach out to Dr. Paul Heilker.
Departmental Honors Courses are offered through Virginia Tech's many different academic departments. These courses end with an “H” and are found in the course registration system within specific subjects (for example, MATH 2114H is an honors section of "Introduction to Linear Algebra".) A Departmental Honors Course is generally much smaller than non-honors sections of the same course and may be taught in unique ways.
ARCH 1044H - Life in the Built Environment
HNFE 2014H - Nutrition Across the Life Span
MATH 2114H - Introduction to Linear Algebra
MATH 2204H - Introduction to Multivariable
MATH 2214H - Introduction to Differential E
MATH 2405H - Mathematics in a Computational
MATH 2405H - Mathematics in a Computational
MKTG 3104H - Marketing Management
Watch the video below to learn how to find Departmental Honors Courses in the VT course registration system.
Looking for a way to earn honors credit that doesn’t mean adding courses to your schedule? Consider completing a Faculty-Student Agreement (FSA) for a course you’re already taking! Review the FSA Guide here.
An FSA Form is required by the end of the third week of a fall or spring term in order to pursue an FSA. Find the form and more information about this process in the FSA assignments in the Canvas Honors Credit Tracker.
Have questions about honors credit or need help planning your Honors Laureate Diploma?
Set up an appointment with the Honors Peer Advising Center (HPAC)!
Learn more about Honors academic requirements and all of the ways to earn Honors credit here.