Community-Engaged Honors Program

The Sixth College Honors Program is an earned-honors, cohort-based program designed for highly motivated first- and second-year students interested in the process of engaging in community and building human connections through the lens of Cultural Studies. The program's concepts—community engagement, critical media literacy, and impactful composition—reflect CAT's belief that the ability to analyze and produce media and writing are at the core of affecting positive social change. Over the three-course sequence, students will be challenged to expand their awareness of the ways in which media and rhetoric impact their lives. These courses will empower students to locate their own agency and apply it to identifying and solving community-based problems. Ultimately, students who complete the program will come away with the skills and tools needed to be lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and changemakers.

For the 2023-2024 cohort, no more than twenty-five students will be accepted into the program.

The program is currently designed for non-transfer students only. However, we hope to soon make available a similar program for transfer students as well.

Learning Objectives

The Honors Program aims to develop students who are:

Lifelong Learners: By providing opportunities to take ownership of their own learning, students will be encouraged to discover their own intrinsic and personal motivations for learning. Students will find a sense of enjoyment and develop curiosity and motivation to continue to learn beyond college.

Critical Thinkers: By facilitating a social consciousness through the introduction of critical frameworks and theories students will be encouraged to analyze the world around them, in particular dominant cultural narratives and norms.

Changemakers: By providing students opportunities to put their knowledge into action through civic and community engagement, students will develop a sense of responsibility and empowerment to become agents of change in their own communities.

Program Sequence

In order to successfully complete the Honors Program, accepted students are required to complete the three-course sequence outlined below by the time they graduate:

Fall Quarter: Apply for the Honors Program
Winter Quarter: Enroll in CAT 2CE
Spring Quarter: Enroll in CAT 3CE
Future Quarter (anytime before graduating): Complete designated community-engaged or experiential learning opportunity through CAT 90 or CAT 124

Application Timeline

The timeline for the 2023-2024 application cycle is as follows:

Fall 2023

Week 2: Online application opens
Week 5: Deadline to submit applications
Week 6: Applicants notified of acceptance
Week 7: Accepted students enroll in CAT 2CE

Application Materials

The online application for the 2023-2024 cohort will be available starting in Week 2 of Fall 2023. To apply for the program, students must submit the following materials:

Online application form
High school transcript indicating unweighted high school GPA
250-300 word essay
Recommendation form signed by a CAT 1 professor or TA

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for the Honors Program's 2023-2024 cohort, students must meet the following criteria:

Be a 1st or 2nd year student at UCSD
Be enrolled in CAT 1 during Fall 2023
Not have previously completed CAT 2 or CAT 3
Have a unweighted high school GPA of 3.8 or higher