The Hicks Honors College
The Hicks Honors College at the University of North Florida offers talented students a unique approach to higher education. Averaging only 20 students, Honors seminars apply active learning in interdisciplinary settings. The goal is to build a community of learners who have the power to take their learning outside the classroom, enabling them to take what they read in their text and apply it to the outside world. In addition, Honors students are offered special funding opportunities to enable them to learn through travel, internships, and research. The Hicks Honors College provides students with a personalized education that is usually only available at small liberal arts colleges but at the price of a state university tuition.
The Hicks Honors College Advantage
Strong Start to College
- Close-knit community fostered by retreat at beginning of first year
- Living/learning residence-live with others who are like-minded and with whom you learn
- Deeply meaningful first year colloquium with community-based service learning
- Strong academic and personal support, including a dedicated Honors advisor for four years
Overall Benefits
- Unique "cool" topics classes that fulfill university requirements, like "Hidden Kitchens," "The Genesis of New Ideas," and "Genius in the Big Bang Theory" (the TV show)
- Many curricular and co-curricular opportunities to build intercultural competency
- Immersive study abroad experiences with funding from the Hicks Honors College
- Funding for research with faculty
- Significant Honors leadership opportunities as well as support for other leadership activities
- Service learning in classes as well as co-curricular service activities
- Careful cultivation of critical thinking and "soft" skills
- Support for applying for nationally-competitive fellowships
- Capstone project which integrates education from all four years and adds distinction
- Priority registration
Strong Finish
Honors students thrive in college, but they also don't hang around forever. The majority of honors students graduate within four years, despite the fact that most study abroad and many of them have double majors and multiple interests.
Graduates of the Hicks Honors College have excellent post-graduate prospects. Recent alumni have attended top graduate schools (in all sorts of fields) such as Columbia University, Georgia Tech, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, University of South Carolina, The Ohio State University, University of Florida, Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Glasgow, etc. Some examples of jobs that they have received include Mayo Clinic Research Associate, Insight Global Recruiter, District Executive Secretary at the Florida House of Representatives, Peace Corps, etc.
What This Means For You
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It means learning to think carefully and well. It means working with professors who know your name. It means traveling to other countries and learning to understand other cultures. It means being part of a tight-knit community in which everyone is focused on becoming well-rounded individuals and exploring the world beyond lectures and textbooks. It means being supported by faculty who understand that the most meaningful education combines experiential learning and critical thinking. Our classes are heavily discussion-based, with plentiful opportunity for careful, critical thought. Many of our courses include field trips and other activities beyond the classroom so that students have the chance to see how the topic relates to the real world and to apply the skills they've learned.
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In high school you get quality points because the class is more advanced and requires more work - it is both faster and more. Honors at UNF also gives you more, but in a different way. We take the best of challenging advanced work and use active and experiential learning techniques to make the subject more project-based, more applied, more experiential. Some classes replace large traditional General Education offerings with smaller classes that have a more focused theme and an interdisciplinary basis, others are a part of your major but involved research or applied projects, and still others include a trip abroad or the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member on your own research or a joint project.
