Department of Urban Studies and Planning Senior Honors Thesis
To receive departmental honors, students are required to complete USP 190 Senior Honors Thesis. The one quarter seminar is designed for seniors who wish to undertake a research project under the supervision of a DUSP faculty member and satisfies one upper division elective requirement in both the Urban Studies & Planning and Real Estate & Development majors. Students who have special research interests and plan to pursue graduate school or work in research focused fields are strongly recommended to apply to the Honors Program. Applications for USP 190 are collected in the winter.
2024-2025 Senior Honors Thesis Application - Due 2/16/25
If you are interested in completing the USP 190 Senior Honors Thesis in Spring 2025, please read all the criteria listed below and complete the application by 2/16/25.
To be admitted to the seminar, a student must have:
- Senior standing at the time of completing the application
- Minimum GPA of 3.5 in major coursework
- Minimum overall GPA of 3.0
- Completed USP 185B or USP 187 by the start of Spring 2025
- Have a faculty advisor confirmed from the list of faculty in the department
Info Session Recording
Thesis Proposal
The application also requires students to write proposal that describes their prospective honors research project. The typed proposal should be no more than 1000 words (1-2 pages) and include the following criteria:- Title
- Problem or Issue that your thesis is addressing
- Potential methods and data sources for analysis
- Potential applications for your findings
Your faculty advisor must review the proposal before signing the Faculty Student Support Agreement Form (see below).
Faculty Advisor
Each student completing the Seniors Honors Thesis is required to have a faculty advisor who is a member of the DUSP faculty. Prior to applying for admission to the Honors Program, students should contact the faculty member with whom they hope to work, and arrange a meeting to discuss their proposed project and review their thesis proposal. Ideally, the faculty member is someone with whom a student has had one or more classes and whose subject area and is a good fit in terms of the research or creative interests a student hopes to pursue in the program. Students may want to provide an unoficial copy of their transcript as well as a writing sample to the faculty member for review. The faculty member must complete the Faculty Student Support Agreement Form which the student will submit with their application.
Writing Sample
Applicants must attach an example of what they believe is their best written work (from a USP class preferred, but other papers will also be accepted). We are looking to see the quality of the applicant's writing, their ability to organize and clearly convey their thoughts, and their ability to make a coherent argument.
This can be in the form of an essay, memo, research paper, etc. The sample should be no more than 12 pages of material. The sample should be a single file, uploaded as a PDF or Word document.
