Faculty committee: Chair, Cha-Sook You
The research honors program in the Division of Nutritional Sciences is an excellent opportunity for students who are highly motivated, interested in research, and wish to commit substantial time and intellectual energy to a project that will span about four semesters of their undergraduate tenure. Honors students enjoy the excitement of both participating in a project that generates new knowledge on an interesting topic and reporting their research findings. By working with faculty mentors and other researchers, they develop skills in research methods and data analysis. Students also learn that research projects are labor intensive and that writing research reports, such as the honors thesis, is a vital and time-consuming aspect of the research process. This intensive research experience is not suitable for all students, and those who desire a less intensive research experience may conduct research with a faculty member under NS 4010.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES
Students interested in applying to the research honors program in Nutritional Sciences must:
- Take NS 3980 as early in their program as possible.
- Be accepted into a faculty member’s research program
- Submit a research proposal abstract that is approved by the director of the research honors program.
HONORS PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
The research honors project, through which students becomes intellectually engaged in the entire research process, is the major component of the honors program. It should be well defined and sufficiently circumscribed to give students the opportunity to develop a research plan, execute the research, and write an acceptable thesis within the limited time available to students carrying full academic loads. Typically, the project is designed early in the junior year and conducted in the spring semester of the junior year and fall semester of senior year. Students may also arrange with their faculty mentor to work on the project during the summer. The spring senior semester is usually devoted to writing the thesis (at least 25 pages).
The research honors program is a structured experience that requires:
- GPA>3.2
- Pass NS 3980
- Minimum 6 credits of NS 4990. The six required credits may be taken over several semesters.
- A written thesis that reports the research. Minimum 25 pages. Thesis will be evaluated by a reader (DNS faculty) and acceptance of the thesis is by approval of Dr. Cha-Sook You.
- An oral presentation of the project at the undergraduate honors symposium.
- Students may volunteer to publish their final, approved thesis at eCommons Cornell University Library, as long as doing so does not interfere with other plans, such as patenting or publishing in another journal. A permission form can be obtained from the honors committee chair.
- Each summer, in recognition of the research performed by honors students and their faculty mentors, a compilation of honors thesis abstracts is published in the CALS Research Honors Abstracts. Students are required to submit their thesis title, research advisor’s name, and abstract (in Word format) to the honors committee chair for inclusion in this publication. Students should be advised of the abstract publication instructions and deadlines for submission.
Students may review additional details about deadlines and program requirements at http://www.human.cornell.edu/dns/academic/upload/Honors-Program-2013.pdf and http://www.human.cornell.edu/dns/academic/upload/43-46-honors-research-pgm-11-p43-46.pdf or contact Dr. Cha-Sook You.