Honors College Curricula

One College: Three Paths to Success

The Honors College does not believe in a "one-size-fits-all" approach to education. Whether you are a First-Time-In-College student, a transfer student or a current FGCU student, there is a place for you at the Honors College. Our three paths are designed to accommodate differing credit hours at time of entrance into the Honors College.

Fall 2025 Curriculum Update

Selecting from among these three paths pertains only to students admitted to the Honors College in February 2025 or prior. All students admitted after February 2025 follow the Honors Scholars curricular path.

Honors Scholars

Primarily for First-Time-in-College (FTIC) students.

Complete 18 credit hours of Honors coursework, with at least 9 credit hours of upper-division courses in the major approved by Honors advising
Complete 2 Honors Experiences
- See below for Honors Experiences opportunities
FTIC students complete an Honors First Year Sequence course in the fall and spring semester
Graduate with a 3.50 or higher cumulative (institutional) GPA

Honors Foundations

Primarily for students enrolling in Honors after earning 30 credit hours.

Complete 12 credit hours of Honors coursework (any class, any level)
Complete 2 Honors Experiences
- See below for Honors Experiences opportunities

FTIC students complete an Honors First Year Sequence course in the fall and spring semester
Graduate with a 3.50 or higher cumulative (institutional) GPA

Honors in the Major

Primarily for students enrolling in Honors after earning 30 credit hours.

Complete 9 credit hours of Honors coursework in upper-division courses in the major approved by Honors advising
Complete 1 Honors Experience
- See below for Honors Experience opportunities
Graduate with a 3.50 or higher cumulative (institutional) GPA

Earning Honors Credits

IDH Courses

Honors Standalone (IDH) courses are only offered to Honors College students. Honors courses can be offered as general education requirements, upper-division major requirements, or students can search and take unique Honors courses based on their interest. You can search on Gulfline for some examples Honors standalone courses by searching with the course attribute "HONS - Honors Section"

Honors Embedded Courses

An Honors curriculum is embedded into a standard FGCU course offering. Honors students within a course open to all students can gain Honors credit by working on a project, decided by the faculty, with their fellow Honors classmates. An Embedded Course allows faculty to expand their teaching approach while Honors students expand their leadership, teamwork and scholarly skills. This is only for upper-division courses.

Honors Contracts

Honors Contracts provide students the opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors on independent projects in courses they are enrolled in to develop special skills and gain in depth knowledge related to the course. The student and faculty member for the course collaborate on a project proposal, and the student completes the additional project throughout the semester. This is only for upper-division courses.

Honors Experiences

The requirements for graduating from FGCU’s Honors College include the completion of co-curricular endeavors, called “Honors Experiences.”

An “Honors Experience” is, by design, difficult to define neatly. It entails surpassing conventional expectations, going beyond usual campus contexts, to attain Honors-level excellence in scholarly achievements, impactful service, significant leadership, cultural proficiency, or creative work. The lack of a clear-cut definition should not frustrate but rather motivate, invigorate. An Honors Experience is meant to be a flexible, student-driven opportunity for envisioning, attaining, and showcasing excellence.

To identify a prospective Honors Experience, many Honors students find it useful to consider thoughtfully their current activities, interests, and aspirations. From that starting point, they devise ways to level up in their endeavors, leaning into their areas of passion, to create meaningful Honors Experiences.

For instance, a student might undertake a beach cleanup (a helpful if rather conventional service activity); to make it an Honors Experience, the student could develop ways to make that beach cleanup more efficient and impactful, more sustainable, on a larger scale, and/or could communicate ideas about beach cleanup to particular audiences: a relevant lesson plan for a fourth-grade class, for example; artwork made from repurposed litter from the shoreline, or an audiovisual documentary designed for a local eldercare context.
Another student might work part-time at a fast-food chain. Even this can afford opportunities for an Honors Experience: the local franchise of a chain restaurant inevitably holds in tension an emphasis on the streamlined predictability of the brand experience alongside the need to connect with the local community. For an Honors Experience, the student could, with their manager’s permission, introduce an interactive exhibit, contest, or other activity that respects the chain’s standards while cultivating a sense of authentic, local connections, perhaps by harnessing principles from courses in Art History, Marketing, or Digital Media Design.
An internship, too, can be an Honors Experience if it transcends the basics (cf. the stereotypes of interns doing only menial tasks like fetching coffee or mindless photocopying) to encompass a trajectory of increasing responsibility, a notable project, or the development of a discernible skill as an intern.

The examples below are not, of course, an exhaustive list of possible Honors Experiences but are intended to inspire reflection and conversations about the wide array of meaningful opportunities.

Scholastic

Completing an Honors Thesis
Completing a Directed Independent Study course or faculty-mentored research project, such as the NSF’s Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU), beyond degree requirements
Successfully applying for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for research involving human subjects
With guidance from the Office of Competitive Fellowships (OCF), completing an application for a national or international scholarship or fellowship and earning the university’s endorsement to compete (regardless of the outcome of the application)
Working with a faculty mentor on a research paper or poster presented at a conference beyond FGCU

Service

Serving as an Honors Mentor for at least one year
Serving twice as a site leader for FGCU’s Weeks of Welcome (WoW) Service Day and/or Make a Difference Day (MADD)
Serving commendably as a Student Government Senator
Sustained service that significantly exceeds, in quantity or in depth, the service hours that FGCU requires for graduation (students generally find that 160 hours, double the number that FGCU requires, is an effective benchmark)

Cultural

Studying abroad or studying away
International service projects
Second-language acquisition beyond the intermediate level (e.g. as attested by completing a course beyond the 2000-level in a language, such as FRE 3530 “France and Its Food Culture”)

Documenting Honors Experiences

Some Honors Experiences are already documented on a student’s FGCU transcript (e.g. study abroad courses) or record of service-learning hours (currently logged via the Eagle Service Network). Other Honors Experiences must be documented via the relevant Formstack link on the Honors College website (or here). The Formstack submission, which usually requires the attestation of a faculty supervisor, should illustrate all or part of an Honors Experience in terms of a vivid, verifiable product or deliverable. The purpose of documenting Honors Experiences is not merely for logging credit toward Honors graduation requirements but also to curate ready-made, ready-packaged examples, ready to invoke in networking, job interviews, or applications for further study.