ICS Honors Program

The application has two parts:

• The deadline to submit an application for the 2023-2024 Honors Program was Friday, May 26, 2023 at 5 p.m. The Online Application will ask for:
  • GPA in a set of required courses (see course requirements tab).
  • One-page statement about yourself and your intellectual achievements, accomplishments and goals. You may wish to indicate any research projects (CS 199s, INF 99, or STATS) in which you have been actively involved.
  • Names of two faculty references.
• Faculty References:
  • Please direct them to the Faculty References form so they may answer a few short questions about their experience with you.
  • Please note that your faculty references must be ICS faculty.
  • The deadline to submit faculty references was Friday, June 2, 2023 at 5 p.m.

Students joining the program participate in the ICS Honors Seminar (ICS H197), which provides an introduction to research areas in the school. ICS H197 is graded Pass/Not Pass, and the principal formal requirement is that you attend and participate.

ICSHP students are required to enroll in ICS H197 in the fall of their first year in the program. Program participants are encouraged to enroll in ICS H197 prior to commencing research, so as to facilitate networking with faculty.

All applicants must satisfy the following conditions (that correspond to their major) by the end of the quarter in which the application is made:

• An overall GPA of at least 3.2

• A GPA of at least 3.5 in the courses listed below:

• Group 1 courses – Computing (for any major, one of the following):
  • ICS 31, 32, 33, 45J (BIM or INF ONLY) – OR –
  • ICS 31, 32, 33, 45C, 46 (CGS, CS, CSE, DS, SE) – OR –
  • GDIM 31, 32, 33, 25, 27 (GDIM ONLY)

• Group 2 courses – Math (for any major, one of the following):
  • Math 2A-B (BIM, CGS, CS, CSE, DS, SE) – OR –
  • Stats 7 and ICS 6B (INF ONLY) – OR –
  • Stats 6 (GDIM ONLY)

Steps to Complete the ICS Honors Program

The requirements to complete the ICS Honors Program are as follows:

• Take ICS H197 Honors Seminar each quarter
  • ICS H197 will be offered for 2 units in the Fall and 1 unit for Winter and Spring
• Find a Faculty Advisor to oversee your research
  • Submit an Initial Plan once you find a faculty advisor and decide on a topic for your research project.
• Take 2 quarters of Honors Research (H198) with your Faculty Advisor
• Submit a thesis

Note: There may be other assignments such as check-ins during your participation in the program.

Taking ICS H197 Honors Seminar

ICS H197 provides an opportunity for the Bren School’s undergraduate honors students to learn about the research taking place in the school and to begin to get involved with this research. The main purpose of this course is to help you learn what sort of research is being conducted, which people do what, and how to get connected with a research project.

Several types of meetings are planned for this seminar, including the following:

• Overview of the program
• How to start research
• Periodic progress check ins
• Many of the faculty will give a presentation about their research interests.
• Graduate school tips

One of your major goals in this course is to gain an understanding of what research is being pursued in the school and what areas might be of interest to you for your project. This is crucial, since it should help you complete your second goal: selection of your faculty advisor. Remember that the arrangement must be mutually acceptable, so there is no guarantee that the first faculty member you talk to will say yes; it may be, for example, that they have no suitable project in mind at the time you ask.

Students are encouraged to enroll in the seminar prior to doing their research, so that they may connect with potential faculty advisors.

Enrolling in ICS H197

In order to enroll in ICS H197, please follow instructions for submitting an application when available. Students admitted into the ICS Honors Program will be emailed an authorization code along with their notice of admission.

Enrollment in ICS H197 is mandatory for students admitted to the ICSHP as it is a program requirement.

Please note that ICS H197 is only available to students admitted into the ICS Honors Program.

How many units of ICS H197 should I take?
Admitted students should take 2 units of ICS H197 during the Fall, and 1 unit during the Winter and Spring quarters.

To complete the honors program, you must take two quarters of independent, supervised work (CS H198 or In4matx H198) with your faculty advisor. (In some cases, your advisor might ask you to take a graduate course to substitute for the first quarter.)

You are responsible for making contact with faculty members to discuss their research and for finding a faculty advisor. We require you to make at least three contacts every quarter until you have found an advisor and have submitted the “Initial Plan” (see Forms Page).

Until the “Initial Plan” has been submitted, you must submit a “Faculty Contact Report” to the ICS Student Affairs Office shortly after the end of each quarter. This gives a one-paragraph summary of the faculty contacts you have made in the previous quarter (at least three). This requirement begins the quarter you take ICS H197.

To make a faculty contact, you must do the following:

1. Review the faculty profiles to determine their research interest.
2. Call or email in advance, ask for any background reading material, and schedule an appointment.
3. Read the background material, if any, and possibly make a trip to the library to find out more about the general area.
4. Show up for the interview prepared with a list of points about the research area that you find interesting, and a list of questions about the area that you would like to know more about.
5. After the interview, send a thank-you note, thanking the faculty member for their time.

It is important not to be discouraged if your first few contacts don’t result in finding an appropriate faculty advisor. Keep trying. You can improve your chances by first doing even more background reading in the area before you talk to a faculty member, so that you appear to be interested and informed. You can also improve your chances by talking to a wider variety of faculty members, which will expose you to a wider range of research possibilities. Do be sensitive to their time constraints; don’t be a bother, but do be persistent.

CS H198 Credit

Students majoring in CS can count completion of two CS H198s (or In4matx H198) as one upper-division elective and project course.

Students majoring in GDIM can count completion of two CS H198s (or In4matx H198) as two upper-division electives.

Students majoring in BIM, CGS, CSE, DS, GDIM, INF, SE: Students can petition to count completion of two CS H198 (or In4matx H198) as one upper-division elective.

BIM, CGS, CSE, DS, INF, SE: Under review

Once you find a faculty advisor, develop a plan for how you will begin to tackle the research. Then fill out the “Initial Plan” form. In some cases, your plan might be a program of study at first, rather than a description of your specific project. In any case, a brief description of your plans and goals should be included.

This should be approved by both you and you faculty advisor, and submitted to the program advisor. You are encouraged to discuss your plans, as they are forming, with the program advisor.

It is important for you to maintain contact with your faculty advisor, and to make sure you know whether he/she feels that your work is progressing adequately. As an extreme example, you want to avoid a situation in which you don’t talk to your advisor after your first meeting, turn in a paper after two quarters of CS H198 (or In4matx H198), and then find that the advisor considers it to be inadequate. To help avoid pitfalls, schedule regular meetings with your advisor to discuss your progress.

The results of your honors work as an ICSHP participant must be certified by your faculty advisor and by the program advisor to be of honors quality.

NOTE: Students in the Campus Honors Collegium (CHC) should keep in contact with CHC counselors about requirements for completion, as they may differ from ICSHP requirements.

At the end of your second quarter of independent study with your faculty advisor, you should prepare a paper describing the project and the results. Again, the format may vary considerably from one project to another. For example, one student might produce a well-documented program to be used in a lab in one of our courses, and also provide a paper describing the design choices, rationale and experience with the use of the program. Another student might not do any programming, but rather do a statistical study of the use of computers in some organization, and write a careful scholarly interpretation of the results (perhaps 20 pages) with appropriate references to the literature.

You can find examples of what students have done in the past on our ICSHP Sample Thesis Database.

How to Submit Your Thesis

Once you have completed your thesis, you will need to submit it to the ICS Undergraduate Student Affairs Office along with the Final Project Form. 

 Here are the steps to submit your Final Project Form:

• Step 1: Download the Final Project Form on our website and fill out the student portion. 
• Step 2: Have your Faculty Advisor electronically sign the Final Project Form.
  • Note: You don’t need to worry about the Honors Program Advisor signature. We will reach out to them on your behalf.
• Step 3: Submit your paper and the form with both signatures through the Thesis Submission Google Form.

The normal submission deadline is June 30. If you need more time to complete the paperwork, please make arrangements with the ICS SAO office well in advance.

After You Submit Your Thesis

After you submit your thesis, we will forward it to the ICS Honors Program Advisor for review. We will contact you once we receive an update. Please note that this process may take a few weeks.

Once the paper is approved by your faculty advisor and the form is signed by both the faculty and the program advisors, you are considered to have successfully completed the ICSHP. If you have any questions about this process, don’t hesitate to discuss them with the program advisor or an SAO staff member.

Faculty Contact Report

Initial Plan

Final Report on the Honors Project

Thesis Submission

Per Undergrad team

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Information Session Video

ICSHP Application Process Infographic

ICSHP Requirements Infographic