Courses and Program Requirements

Honors Courses

Honors courses (designated HON) are co-taught by NJCU’s best faculty from a wide range of departments across four colleges/schools. The courses are connected to each other in learning communities, ensuring an educational experience that recognizes the complex and interrelated way knowledge is produced and consumed in the contemporary world. Examples of past Honors courses include:

  • Ancient Greek Philosophy
  • Black Berlin
  • Climate Change and Environmental Aspects of Small Tropical Island Nations
  • Food, Place, and Cultural Performance in Peru
  • Forensics
  • Global Political Economy
  • Historic Preservation in the Global City: New York, Shanghai, Beijing
  • Honors Ethics
  • Recycling and Recirculating in Different Media
  • Trial Advocacy and the American Legal System

Honors courses are open only to students in the Honors Program.

Program Requirements: The Honors Core Curriculum — 32 credits

The Honors experience is a holistic one, engaging students academically, socially, and professionally. The Honors Core Curriculum is central to that experience. Guided by the organizational principles of NJCU’s General Education Program, the Honors Core is an integrated set of interdisciplinary courses, combining methodologies and topics from various disciplines. In alignment with NJCU’s General Education, Honors courses are defined by four mode(s) of inquiry the engage:

  • Creative Process and Production (CPP)
  • Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies (LLC)
  • Scientific and Quantitative Inquiries (SQI)
  • Social and Historical Perspectives (SHP)
biology female student lab teacher
Dr. Bendaoud, Honors faculty expert, teaching a BIO course.
machu honors group
Dr. Ochoa-Winemiller and students in Peru for the Honors Core.

The Trial Advocacy course opened a few people up to pursuing a career in law. As for me, the class made me excited to serve on a jury. It prepared me and made me eager to do my part in my community. As for the Forensics course, it was certainly one of my favorite classes I had ever taken! We learned about everything from sequencing and comparing some DNA to accessing blood splatter patterns. It led me to take additional classes later on that studied crime scenes and the behavioral psychology of criminals – Genevieve Catrillo, Honors Class of 2020

In 2020, the Honors Program Committee, NJCU Senate, and administration are working together to update and improve course offerings and requirements. During the 2020-2021 academic year, there may be some adjustments in the courses and requirements outlined above. For updates, email njuchonorsprogram@njcu.edu.