When there is no available Honors section of a course, an Honors student and the instructor of that course can enter into an Honors Conversion Agreement. The conversion should add an Honors learning experience to the course content, and successful completion of the course and the conversion work will result in Honors credit on the student's transcript.
The availability of an Honors conversion is always at the discretion of the instructor. We are very appreciative of all the UConn instructors who take the time and energy to enrich our students' education. We also hope that supervising an Honors conversion is engaging and rewarding for instructors, allowing them to also go beyond what they usually teach in a course.
Defining an Honors Learning Experience
The theoretical framework behind a UConn Honors education defines our goal as promoting creative productivity so that students can solve real problems in their fields and their communities. It also specifies three ways that an Honors learning experience may contribute to this goal:
- Exploration: Students identify areas for future leadership through exposure to a diversity of fields, subfields, and problems they might solve.
- Skill building: Creative productivity requires advanced skills, beyond those needed by the typical UConn undergraduate. This includes discipline-specific skills and more general skills like collaboration or creativity.
- Creative productivity: Students need practice in creating unique products, beyond what would otherwise be expected, especially when those products will be shared with real, authentic audiences.
For a successful Honors conversion, both the student and the instructor should understand which of these three roles the additional work will fill.
Defining an Honors Conversion
The Honors conversion exists so that students may earn Honors credit when there is no available Honors version of the course. Just like Honors courses, there is no single "standard" Honors conversion. However, there are a few key points:
- The Honors conversion should enrich the course. Honors credit is applied to the given course on their transcript, so the conversion work must be related to that course. Unconnected research or scholarship, even in the same department, would not be appropriate.
- Any Honors conversion work is in addition to the standard coursework. In fact, the student's final grade should be computed just as if they were not converting the course, and students must earn a B- or better in the course to receive Honors credit for their conversion.
- The workload for the Honors conversion should be reasonable. The Honors Conversion Policy defines this as a total of 20-25 additional hours for a 3-credit course.
For more details, see the basic guidelines for Honors conversions.
Examples of Honors Conversions
Most students and instructors automatically think of an additional scholarly paper when they think of a conversion. That's far from the only (or necessarily the best) option! Consider:
- Additional assigned readings and responses for each unit in the course
- Annotated bibliographies or summaries of current research for multiple course topics
- Presentations of additional content to the class, which could include facilitating discussion on it
- Extensions to assigned problem sets, laboratory experiments, or data analyses
- Analysis of relevant book(s), performances, or other media that are not assigned in the course itself
- Service activities or field experiences with critical reflection
Characteristics of Great Conversions
An Honors conversion can be a memorable learning experience, but it can also be frustrating "busy work" for the student and the instructor. When students talk about great Honors conversions, they mention the following:
- A clear rationale for how the conversion work extends the course that also aligns with the student's own goals.
- Multiple points of connection to course materials, both in terms of the content and in terms of the semester timeline.
- The opportunity to work more closely with and learn from their instructor.
That "default" scholarly paper can be a great conversion if the work is intentionally spread through the semester and there are opportunities to connect with the instructor at important points in the process. Students learn more about each step (such as finding and evaluating sources, synthesizing into a cohesive literature review, outlining, etc.), and both students and instructors are happier with the end product.
Just want to get started? Links to the new form are in the Student Guide and the Instructor Guide.
There are several changes for Fall 2026, so please read your guide first, even if you have completed conversions in the past.