Loyola University Chicago

Interdisciplinary Honors Program

Curriculum

Interdisciplinary in design and international in scope, Loyola’s Honors Program offers a dynamic general education that enables our students to bring many perspectives to real world problem-solving, in the Jesuit tradition. Faculty craft intensive courses that refine analytical and communication skills. The formal curriculum is supplemented with many cultural excursions and service opportunities.

Requirements

  • The program requires 27 credit hours (9 classes) of honors courses.
  • All honors courses must be completed with a grade of "C" or better.
  • Students must have an overall GPA of 3.33 or better to graduate with honors. Students with 80+ credit hours or at the end of their Junior year will be removed from the program if their cumulative GPA is below 3.2.
  • Education, Engineering, Nursing, and Social Work majors have modified Honors Program requirements. Education, Nursing, and Social Work majors may take the HONR 301 Capstone in the second semester of their junior year. Education majors are exempt from the requirement for HONR 203 and Engineering majors are exempt from the requirement for HONR 204.

Course Descriptions

Honors courses differ in structure and content from non-honors courses, and these courses are offered in a sequence. Honors students must complete the following courses:

  1. Western Intellectual Traditions: Antiquity to the Middle Ages(First year, fall semester)
  2. Western Intellectual Traditions: Renaissance to Modernism(First year, spring semester)
  3. The United States Experience(Anytime after first year)
  4. Area Studies (Two of the following courses anytime after first year):
       Encountering Africa
       Encountering Asia
    Encountering Contemporary Europe
       Encountering Latin America and the Caribbean
       Encountering the Middle East
  5. Science and Society(Anytime after first year)
  6. Honors Capstone: Moral Responsibility (75 credit hours earned or Senior year)