The University Honors Program at Northeastern holds the following values to be crucial components of the Honors experience:
- Learning Happens Everywhere: At Northeastern, learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom— it happens in the residence hall, laboratory and artistic spaces, the local community, and those reflections in between. This is a major value of our university, but Honors embraces it through our mission, outlook, and endeavors. Be it an Honors service-learning course, presenting at national conferences, or participating in a global co-op experience, Honors enables learning wherever students’ personal journeys may take them.
- Student-Directed Learning: Only at Northeastern, with our educational philosophy of integrated learning and practice, can we empower our Honors students to direct their own learning in a context sustained by the passions that fuel them. By offering opportunities to conduct advanced, interdisciplinary research and creative projects, build like-minded communities of scholarly peers, and participate in select research assistantships with university faculty, While the University Honors Program provides the resources, mentoring and a vast array of opportunities, students have the freedom to select and combine these opportunities to create something distinctly personalized to their passions and interests.
- Networked Communities: Honors students immediately begin their undergraduate journey as a part of the Honors community. They will then build layered connections within and beyond that network as they join other communities through the Honors Living Learning Communities, the Honors Alumni Mentoring Network, and their respective disciplines. It is through Honors that our students will grow a complex network of connections and support that will last a lifetime.
- Global Citizenship: Honors students are encouraged and supported to take advantage of the many global, experiential opportunities that Northeastern and Honors offers them—without boundaries or barriers. Through Honors Dialogues of Civilization, Alternative Spring Break service-learning projects, or global co-op, Honors students are given the means and support to engage with the broader global community in which they inhabit.
- Personalized Growth Through Guidance and Support: Honors at Northeastern exemplifies our belief in personalized learning journeys. We take this a step further in Honors, as we curate and customize possibilities, while enabling our students be the architect of their path. Honors Academic Advising acts as the cornerstone in this effort, guiding students through one-on-one conversations grounded in developmental and reflective dialogue.
- Leadership: Honors students are prepared and empowered to take on leadership roles throughout their Northeastern experience. While they are the architects of their own futures, Honors students also shape the future of the University Honors Program itself. From designing social and educational experiences for their peers as Honors Program Assistants, participating in prospective student outreach as Honors Ambassadors, to taking part in workshops designed to foster leadership, communication, and team-building skills, Honors students have enormous opportunities to build leadership competencies in ways that align with their personal interests and goals.
Honors students participating in a comprehensive leadership workshop, led by Professor of Theatre Antonio Ocampo-Guzman. By exploring and practicing spatial awareness, physical presence, mental agility, status, adaptability, risk taking, intuition, and teamwork, students learn strategies for effectively presenting themselves to others under a variety of circumstances. As a result, students exude greater confidence in their ability to command the attention and energize their peers, employers, and community members and lead change.