BHC offers three weeks when you don’t have any other classes and do have the luxury of focusing on your Honors project. This period of focused time to work can be applied to whatever aspect of your thesis you want to work on, e.g. doing as much reading as you can; finding experimental strategies or critical approaches that appeal to you; narrowing your topic; starting a literature review; writing a partial outline; drafting text; consulting with your Faculty Leader; collecting, analyzing and/or integrating data; or thinking and writing in a concentrated way.
Company
Writing an Honors thesis is a long process, with many phases: panic, when you can’t think of anything to write; exhilaration, when what you want to do is write all the time; loneliness, because writing can be solitary work; and excitement, because you just made a breakthrough and see your project taking shape before your eyes. All of these come with the territory; they are not only normal, they are what make you a writer. What is less common is to have a community around you of 100 Honors students going through experiences similar to yours at the same time. They are your colleagues, a ready-made community with which you can identify. Don’t restrict your interactions to the students in your cohort; one of the most rewarding aspects of BHC is getting to know some very interesting people you wouldn’t have met otherwise and to find out what they’re working on. You may meet peers during these three weeks who will still be your friends long after your Honors thesis has been accepted, bound, and put online for other scholars to use.
Faculty and grad student support
The Faculty Leaders and Graduate Student Affiliates are there to engage with you about your work, whatever stage it is or isn’t at. They can help you clarify your goals, narrow your topic, find ways to integrate data into a text, and get the most out of your reading. They can also save you a lot of time by sharing with you what they’ve learned through their own mistakes as writers. They can help you identify useful strategies, offer encouragement, give you constructive criticism, and see your direction when you can’t see it yourself. And when school starts, your Faculty Leader may still be one of your mentors.
