Honors Program

The Honors Program provides undergraduate students with a unique opportunity to work on an in-depth written or multimedia piece over the course of an academic year. After completing The Beat JOUR-201, students take two courses—Honors Advanced Reporting JOUR-UA 351, followed by Honors Senior Seminar JOUR- UA 352—for a total of 8 credits. Students who pursue the Honors Program complete 9 courses (36 credits) in total, as opposed to the 8 courses normally required of journalism majors.

Honors students benefit from close collaboration with a professor as they work to produce a long-form piece. For the 2024-2025 academic year, the Print/Online Honors course will be taught by Prof. Ted Conover, while the Broadcast/Documentary/Multimedia Honors course will be taught by Prof. Jason Samuels and Prof. Alyse Shorland.

To be eligible for the Honors Program, students need to have a 3.65 GPA overall as well as a 3.65 in the journalism major (Interested students whose GPA is lower are invited to contact the professors directly to discuss an exception). Currently, there is no application process for the Honors Program, as we’ve typically been able to accommodate all eligible students who want to participate. The Undergraduate Student Advisor will contact students with GPA’s around or above 3.65 during the Spring semester to gauge interest and share additional information about how to participate for the coming year.

Notes

  • Currently, Honors Advanced Reporting and Honors Senior Seminar are only offered in the Fall and Spring, respectively. Students must be able to take Honors Advanced Reporting in the fall of their senior year and Honors Senior Seminar in the spring of their senior year.
  • The Honors Senior Seminar course does not count as one of the three electives required for the journalism major. It is simply an additional course required for participation in the Honors Program.
  • Students participating in the Honors Program may take a maximum of 40 credits in journalism.

This diagram provides an overview of the undergraduate journalism major with the optional Honors Program. The major with the Honors Program consists of 9 courses. Students typically begin by taking the following three courses in sequence: Investigating Journalism (JOUR-UA 50), Journalistic Inquiry: The Written Word (JOUR-UA 101), and Journalistic Inquiry: Multimedia (JOUR-UA 102). Before completing the last two core courses, students choose to specialize by pursuing either a Print/Online journalism track or a Broadcast/Multimedia journalism track. For both tracks, students will then take The Beat (JOUR-UA 201) followed by Advanced Reporting (JOUR-UA 301). Students who wish to pursue the Honors Program will then take an Honors version of Advanced Reporting (JOUR-UA 351) followed by an Honors Senior Seminar (JOUR-UA 352). In addition to these 6 core courses, students complete 3 electives. For details about the curriculum, including course prerequisites and sequencing options, please visit https://journalism.nyu.edu/undergraduate/program-requirements/#core-courses.

Undergraduate