Honors and Awards

HAVC Department Honors

Honors in the Senior Comprehensive Requirement

All seniors must complete one seminar, 190–191, as their “senior exit” course to satisfy the senior comprehensive requirement. Seminars can be taken for senior exit credit only by permission of the instructor. Within the context of this advanced seminar, students will work under the close supervision of their professor to produce a written project that demonstrates a high level of achievement in research, writing, and critical thinking. Students whose performance is outstanding are eligible for honors in the senior comprehensive.

Honors and Highest Honors in the Major

Highest honors and honors are awarded in the HAVC major to students who have shown a consistently outstanding level of performance throughout their coursework and maintained a superior GPA in the major.  These distinctions are earned by only a small percentage of each graduating class. This notation appears on the transcript as well as on the diploma. 

• Highest honors in the major will be awarded to students with a GPA of 3.9 and above in all HAVC courses + HAVC Department approval*
• Honors in the major will be awarded to students with a GPA of 3.7 and above in all HAVC courses + HAVC Department approval*

* Department approval is guided by consideration of criteria such as overall performance in HAVC coursework and the number of courses taken for a letter grade.

Deans’ and Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Awards

The Deans and Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz wish to recognize excellence in research and creativity among undergraduate students as evidenced through projects and theses performed in the normal pattern of academic activity at UCSC, to both encourage outstanding scholarship and promote research as an important part of undergraduate education. 

Dean’s Awards are granted to fifty of the most excellent undergraduate research projects (ten from each academic division) completed at UCSC during the academic year. Each Dean’s award project will receive $100 for outstanding achievement in their division. Up to fifteen Chancellor’s Awards are given to the top research projects from each division’s Deans’ Awardees. Each Chancellor’s Award project will receive a $500 award. The Steck Award is given to the most outstanding research project chosen from the fifteen Chancellor’s Awardees. 

Winners of the Deans’, Chancellor’s and Steck awards will be honored during Undergraduate Student Achievement Week. The names of the winners will be posted on the DCA Awards site and graduating winners will be acknowledged at the UCSC commencement ceremonies.

HAVC students win these awards every year and we hope you will consider applying!

You can learn more about this awesome opportunity at https://dca.ue.ucsc.edu