One of our Honors "Power Boosters," Honors Signature Experiences are designed to add interdisciplinary breadth to an honors student's experience. These opportunities can be course-based, co-curricular, or even specialized opportunities to lead within the Honors Program. Plus, they all count towards Honors Completion Requirements.
Early Arrival Course-Based Camps
New honors students have the opportunity to enroll in a 1-credit course-based camp prior to the start of their first fall semester. Participants are able to move onto campus early, allowing them to get to know campus and their honors peers in a more relaxed environment. These courses are condensed into a few days, highly experiential and immersive. In addition to being taught by an honors instructor, honors student leaders also serve as teaching assistants and small group leaders. Students who successfully complete their course-based camp earn 1 academic point towards Honors Completion Requirements. Learn more about our course-based camps here.
Grand Challenge Scholars Program: Justice Challenge
Through the Honors Program's partnership with the APLU Council on Honors Education, select honors students are able to participate in a year-long innovative approach to develop the future workforce in the fields of food, agriculture, natural, and human sciences (FANH). Each year a new cohort of honors students from across the U.S. participate in the Justice Challenge which includes a virtual colloquium, a fall online course, a spring signature experience (field experience, design challenge, or hackathon), and a culminating conference. Applications for UF Honors participants will open in spring for the following year's cohort and will be advertised in the Honors on Wednesday and Friday Focus.
Justice Challenge themes:
2023-2024: Food Justice
2024-2025: Climate Justice
2025-2026: Sustainable Agriculture
Honoring the Ocean
Nearly half the world's population lives within 50 miles of the coast yet many students struggle with intimate connections to the ocean. Honoring the Ocean seeks to remedy this by bringing together faculty, researchers, and Honors students from across the state to explore the relationship between humans and the sea through the lens of multiple academic disciplines - art, journalism, literature, poetry, history, and political science.
Honoring the Ocean is an interdisciplinary, multimodal Honors experiential learning opportunity through which students witness the critical issues facing Florida’s coastline and waters. Sponsored by the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO) students and faculty engage in a 6-week online mini-course that culminates with hands-on experience aboard a FIO research vessel. The University of Florida Honors Program is proud to be one of only 5 institutions that participate in Honoring the Ocean each spring.
Honors Executive Fellows
The Honors Executive Fellows are paired with members of the Honors Program's executive leadership team to develop and assist with projects that support the mission, values, and Strategic Areas of Focus of the program. Honors Executive Fellows meet with their assigned Executive Leader regularly to discuss their projects, allowing for 1:1 high-level mentoring. They are also creating a deliverable that has a tangible benefit to the Honors community, providing them with real accomplishments they can share with employers and graduate / professional school committees. Fellows serve for two consecutive semesters, receive either 2 academic or enrichment points towards Honors Completion Requirements, and receive scholarship funding. Meet the current fellows here.
Honors Study Abroad
Honors study abroad options can take several forms: Fully developed and facilitated by the Honors Program, an honors course offered as part of a larger study abroad experience, and a program developed by another department where honors students have priority to participate. Students who participate in an Honors study abroad experience can earn 1-2 enrichment points and 1 academic point towards Honors Completion Requirements. Non-honors study abroad experiences still earn the 1-2 enrichment points but not the academic point. Learn more about our growing list of Honors-specific study abroad opportunities here.
Students interested in scholarships for one of the honors study abroad programs should apply through the UF International Center's (UFIC) scholarship application process. All honors students who apply for a UFIC scholarship are automatically considered for one of the honors scholarships.
Check out a recent article about Honors study abroad opportunities.
Learning Communities
Honors learning communities provide spaces and structures for a cohort of students, faculty, and sometimes student leaders, to connect, around a shared topic or goal. Students selected for honors learning communities, delve deep into an environment where challenge, learning, and support are key. The first honors learning community, centered around mindfulness, launched in the spring of 2024. Depending on the structure of the learning community and the role assumed, students may be eligible for academic or enrichment points for participation in an honors learning community.
Learn more about the 2024-2025 Mindfulness Learning Community
(Un)Common Classrooms
Honors offers multiple short-term, domestic, trip-based learning opportunities each year, known as (Un)Common Classrooms. During these trip-based courses, faculty and a small group of Honors students investigate topics in urban environments and natural landscapes. Locations across the country serve as experimental classrooms and field-based learning brings an active element to these unusual 1-credit courses. Information about upcoming (Un)Common Classrooms can be found under the Signature Experiences tab for each semester. Students who successfully enroll in an (Un)Common Classroom may earn 1 academic point towards Honors Completion Requirements. All good-standing members of the Honors Program who enroll in an (Un)Common Classroom are eligible to apply for a Wentworth Travel Scholarship to support this experience.
Check out this article about a Fall 2023 UnCommon Classroom focusing on science communication in Cedar Key, FL.
(Un)Common Peer Instructors
Honors Peer Instructors work alongside faculty to develop and lead (Un)Common Read and (Un)Common Arts courses. Applications are accepted in early fall for upper-division Honors students interested in this opportunity. The application is linked in the Honors on Wednesday and Friday Focus. Preference is given to upper-division University Honors Program students with strong proposals, who have successfully enrolled in multiple (Un)Common courses. Students selected for this highly competitive opportunity must complete a training course before teaching. In the training, Peer Instructors learn to distinguish pedagogical and methodological approaches suitable for Honors education as well as develop educational and instructional materials aligned with measurable student learning outcomes that will support their course. (Un)Common Peer Instructors earn 1 academic point for completing the training course and 1 academic point for serving as an undergraduate teaching assistant toward their Honors Completion Requirements.
.png){kind=icon}