Join the Sociology Honors Program!

Join the Sociology Honors Program!

The Sociology Program is accepting students into our Honors Program.  We encourage students to take advantage of this unique opportunity to work individually with our faculty and to pursue their interests in specific areas of Sociology. This is a two course sequence, SOCI 480 and SOCI 481. Each of these courses will be treated as upper level course work, with 3 credits for each semester.

These two linked courses give students an opportunity to work with individual instructors on an independent research project that is of special interest to them. Both courses apply theoretical and methodological knowledge to analyze social issues.

SOCI 480 will require students to develop a research topic and to conduct in-depth independent research through identifying the relevant literature.  During this first semester, you will work with your instructor in clarifying your research topic and writing a series of papers that are related to various aspects of the area under investigation. During the second semester (SOCI 481), you will write a capstone paper (length to be set by the instructor), that will be presented at the end of the semester to the Sociology Faculty and other students.

Prerequisites for Honors Courses:

  • Completion of 75 credits, including 21 credits of Sociology, and English 302 (for the social sciences and humanities). 
  • Completion of SOCI 303 and 311 with a grade of B or better.  
  • An overall GPA of 3.3, with a GPA of 3.5 in Sociology courses.
  • Submission of a brief summary of the area within Sociology that you want to investigate.  This summary should be approximately 2 pages, double spaced.  It should include the questions that you think are particularly interesting and relevant to a broad area in sociology and a statement of why you are interested in this area.
  • Because the faculty in our program have a wide range of research interests, you should identify a faculty member as your mentor for these courses. To learn more about the Sociology faculty’s interests and research, visit soan.gmu.edu, where you will find biographic information and summaries of the faculty’s background.  You should arrange a meeting with the faculty member who is the best fit for your project and take to that meeting a statement of what your focus will be.  Once you have found a good match, you should be sure that the faculty member is willing to be your sponsor for this two-semester sequence of coursework. 
  • Submit the Honors Program Application to Professor Shannon Davis, who will act as coordinator for enrollment in SOCI 480 and 481. If you have questions, see Professor Davis (sdaviso@gmu.edu).