The University awards two kinds of honors at graduation. One is based on your overall GPA and is awarded to you automatically (by the computer) at graduation. You need to have completed at least 60 units at UCB (including EAP units if you were a Cal student before going abroad); of these units at least 43 should have been taken for a letter grade. P.E. activities are not included. The qualifying GPAs are computed each year with a formula involving the GPAs of the last graduating class of each school or college.

The second kind of honors is awarded by individual departments to students who successfully complete a departmental honors program and maintain a minimum GPA. In media studies, if you have a GPA of at least 3.50 overall, and 3.50 in the major, you are eligible to enroll in Media Studies H195, our honors thesis course. You should plan to do so in your final Spring term. If you maintain the 3.50 GPA and complete a thesis of "superior distinction," you will be awarded departmental honors at graduation.

Media Studies H195 – Honors Thesis

IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THE HONORS PROGRAM YOU MUST:

1. Must be able to realistically graduate with 3.5 GPA in the major and overall. This means that at the time of the enrollment in the honors program, you must either have a 3.5 GPA already or be statistically able to graduate with 3.5 GPA. If you need help calculating your possible future GPA please refer to the GPA calculator on the Media Studies website or see the supervising faculty.
2. Be in your final Spring semester at Berkeley
3. Have taken a methods course prior to the enrollment in the Honors Program
4. Have completed, or be concurrently enrolled in, all core courses
5. Attend the “pre-thesis” meeting in the fall or schedule an appointment with supervising faculty during the fall semester. The Current supervising faculty is Marina Levina (mlevina@berkeley.edu). Her office hours are posted on the website.
6. Attend the very first Honors seminar in the Spring – date and time to be posted on schedule of classes – with your preliminary bibliography and a 1-page project proposal (details given at the pre-thesis meeting) completed.

IN ORDER TO GRADUATE WITH HONORS AFTER COMPLETION OF THE HONORS PROGRAM:

1. You must maintain a 3.5 GPA (in the major and overall) at graduation. If you do not maintain this GPA you will not be rewarded honors even if you have successfully completed the thesis.
2. You must complete the Honors Thesis seminar with at least an “A”.

THE HONORS THESIS

To be eligible for honors in Media Studies, you must write a thesis of "superior distinction." The honors thesis should be the culmination of the work that you have done in the Media Studies major and it should be drawn from the base of knowledge that you have acquired in your studies. In addition, it should involve some original research and thinking on significant issues in the field of Media Studies. A superior thesis should be conceptually well-formulated and organized, thoroughly researched and documented, and of course, very well-written. The length of the thesis may vary, but if the questions and issues addressed are important ones, as they should be, it is unlikely that they could be adequately formulated and documented in less than 40 pages. Most of our successful theses in the past have been between 45 and 55 pages. While this length may sound daunting to you if you have written no paper over 15 pages long, most students have found that length is not a problem when they are writing on a topic that is of vital interest to them. Early formulation of your topic and timely development of your research are the keys to a successful honors thesis.