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The Economics Department is now accepting applications for rising seniors who wish to participate in the Economics honors program in the 2024-2025 academic year. If you are an Economics major expected to graduate in Spring or Fall 2025 and your overall and Economics GPAs are 3.40 or above, we hope you’ll consider submitting an application. This is an exciting option for our best students. 

Participants in the honors program are required to take our fall seminar, Econ 4309, which provides 3 credit hours towards your Economics major. The seminar meets Tuesdays 3:30-6 p.m. You should also take our spring seminar, Econ 4339, which does not count toward your major but will give you 3 hours of upper division elective credit. Both of these seminars are designed to assist you in writing and defending an honors thesis in Economics. 

To apply to the honors program, simply submit an informal copy of your transcript to Professor McKinnish (mckinnis@colorado.edu). Applications will be acted on a rolling basis up through the start of the Fall 2024 semester as long as capacity remains in the honors seminar. 

Students who, at the time of application, have not yet completed the required 3000-level coursework for the economics major (3818, 3070 and 3080) may be told that they cannot be enrolled in the honors seminar until they provide an updated transcript showing satisfactory academic performance in these courses. The honors program generally expects a 3.4 combined GPA for these three required 3000-level courses for economics majors. 

Honors students are encouraged to take Econ 4848 (Applied Econometrics) no later than the fall of their senior year. Because virtually all honors students conduct applied econometric analysis as part of their thesis project, the material in that course is particularly beneficial. In absence of taking the course, honors students will likely have to master much of the material on their own in order to execute their thesis research. Students also benefit substantially from Econ 4818 (Econometrics), which provides a deeper understanding of the econometric techniques used. 

Participating in the honors program provides you with a unique opportunity to stretch beyond the standard undergraduate coursework and conduct original research on a topic of interest to you. It requires a deeper intellectual effort and a much more substantial time commitment than typical undergraduate courses. Honors students typically spend 150-200 hours on their thesis project during their senior year, and time demands during the spring semester are particularly severe. Students who successfully complete the honors program, however, find it a very rewarding experience and often find it beneficial when applying for jobs or to graduate school. 

More information can be found at the Arts and Sciences Honors Program.

January 2024