More About the Program

The heart of a Seattle University Honors education lies in its rich liberal arts tradition. The Honors program provides students the opportunity to join a cohort of students who enroll in a series of interconnected seminars centered on the liberal arts.  Through these engaging seminars on the history of ideas, Honors students gain deep knowledge of the humanities, the social sciences, and the history and philosophy of science.

Honors courses follow a chronological sequence that allows students to experience the development of ideas, history, science, and cultures over time. All three tracks begin in the ancient world, before taking different paths through history and culminating in a focus on the issues and crises humankind must confront in the 21st Century and beyond. In all three tracks, through a series of engaging, interconnected seminars, students gain a deep knowledge of the humanities that is ideally suited to helping them address, in powerful ways, the problems of today.

Honors classes employ a lively seminar method that combines the Socratic dialogue with the Jesuit tradition of challenging students to learn for themselves. The seminar method is essential for helping students become self-motivated learners. Professors who teach in Honors are committed to inclusive excellence and dedicated to collaborative learning. Whether pursuing answers to individual questions or interrogating broader issues or problems, students learn quickly how to critically assess ideas and to better understand their own points of view.

Because writing is a process, the program regularly incorporates peer review of student papers. With the help of their professors, students read, critique, and improve each other's papers. Through this intensive writing process, students learn to find their own voice, and hone their skills writing scholarly papers in a variety of disciplines.

At the end of most quarters, each Honors student takes an oral exam with all of their professors simultaneously. The oral exam experience allows students to showcase their knowledge and demonstrate their ability to analyze and synthesize the course materials and ideas across their Honors seminars in each term. The skills developed through the oral exam process carry far beyond the Honors Program, preparing students for interviews of all kinds for scholarships, internships, graduate schools or jobs.