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The CS Departmental Honors (DH)

Undergraduate students in Computer Science completing BA or BS degrees have several options for completing the Departmental Honors (DH) track. The core of the DH is the Honors Project (previously called the Capstone Project), which is a chance to work one-on-one with our faculty on a year-long, in-depth research project. It's fantastic preparation for graduate school and industry, providing a chance to learn skills that are harder to obtain in a classroom setting.

This webpage describes the recommended steps to complete the CS Departmental Honors. For additional details, please check the Commonwealth College website.

The CS Honors Program Director (HPD) is happy to take any questions you may have. Just send an email to askCSHonors [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu with your questions, or schedule an appointment.

Admission

Students who are currently members of the Commonwealth Honors College and have an overall GPA of 3.4 or higher (earned after one fulltime semester of UMass Amherst coursework) are eligible to apply for DH track. The admission is authorized by the HPD through an online form. 

Program Requirements

  • 1 CMPSCI honors course any level
  • 1 CMPSCI honors course 300-level or higher
  • Honors Project or Thesis

Honors course refers to a course that has an associated Honors Colloquium (the course number of which starts with an H). For example, CMPSCI 320 may have an associated Honors Colloquium CMPSCI H320. You need to enroll in both to be eligible. Service courses such as 102 and 105 do not count towards honors courses.

In addition, any CMPSCI graduate-level course (600 or above) that is not a paper-reading class usually counts towards an honors course. 500-level courses vary and require approval by the HPD. If you need confirmation about a specific course, please send an email to askCSHonors [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu

The Honors Project or Thesis requirement is a two-semester sequence. You will work with a research advisor on a specific project that both of you agree on. To do so, you need to enroll in CMPSCI 499Y (Honors Research, previously called Capstone Research), and then CMPSCI 499P or T (Honors Project or Thesis, previously called Capstone Project or Thesis). 499Y is designed to provide preparations for research: students typically work with a faculty member to learn research methodology, select a research topic, and perform literature review. The research project is then completed through taking 499P or T. To enroll in 499Y/P/T you need to submit the Honors Project/Thesis Contract form.

Currently 499Y can be satisfied by taking CMPSCI 691DD (Research Methods), which is offered regularly in the spring semester. This is the recommended way to meet the 499Y requirement. Additional details are described below. If for some reason you are not able to enroll in 691DD, you can still enroll in 499Y by submitting the Honors Project/Thesis Contract form.

Recommended Timeline and Steps

  • Admission: by the fall semester of your junior year.
    See the admission criteria above.
     
  • Find an Honors Research Advisor: by the fall semester of your junior year.
    Start by talking to CS faculty members that are doing work that might interest you. Don't be shy, go out and introduce yourself and tell them about your research interests. Professors that you have taken classes with or have done projects with previously have better ideas about your class performance and research potential, and therefore they are more likely to work with you. The complete list of faculty members can be found in the faculty directory.

  • Select a Research Topic: by the end of the final exam period.
    Email askCSHonors [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu a single, informal paragraph that describes the basic topic of your honors project. You should write this paragraph collaboratively with your advisor. After the fall semester ends and the spring semester starts, you should start working with your advisor to write a research proposal.

    In addition to your primary research advisor (i.e. commitee chair), you will also need a committee member (i.e. a second reader of your project or thesis).
     
  • Submit Research Proposal: by the first Friday of the spring semester of your junior year. 
    Send your final resarch proposal to askCSHonors [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu for approval. The proposal must include a weekly meeting time with your advisor. Also, you must include the name of the second reader of your project. In the worst case, you have until the Add/Drop deadline to submit the proposal.
     
  • Take CMPSCI 691DD: during the spring semester of your junior year.
    As described above, taking CMPSCI 691DD satisfies the 499Y requirement. If for some reason you are not able to enroll in 691DD, you can still enroll in 499Y.
     
  • Take CMPSCI 499P or T: during the fall semester of your senior year.
    The difference between P and T is that the outcome of 499P is a research project and you present your research findings through a presentation and project report; in contrast the outcome of 499T is a research thesis. 

If you cannot meet these deadlines, please send mail to askCSHonors [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu. In particular, if you miss the proposal submission deadline, you MUST detail how your proposal can still be completed in the time remaining in the semester. Under no circumstances will proposals be accepted after Add/Drop. In that case, your schedule must be delayed a semester. The UMass calendar is posted here.

During your second semester of your research (499P/T), you need to provide a revised proposal for your second semester of work The revised proposal is sent on to Commonwealth College.

Although a completed Honors Research (499Y, and 499P or T) is 6 credits toward graduating from UMass, only 3 credits, upon UPD approval, may count toward your CS degree (that is, it's worth one CS elective). 

Research Methods (691DD)

As part of completing your Honors Research, we strongly recommend you to register for 691DD Research Methods. The class is designed to teach you research methodology, and the homework revolves around your specific reseearch project. Taking this class also automatically satisfied the CMPSCI 499Y requirement. Compared to directly taking 499Y, this class will provide a structure for completing your research that your advisor may not be focused on (they are going to be focused on defining the problem). While taking the class, you'll also meet with your Honors Research advisor weekly. The course is offered only in spring semesters.

Research Methods isn't appropriate for every project. It works well when:

  1. The project has a strong empirical component. Students working on projects that are entirely focused on theoretical computer science or on projects that only involve programming (and not on understanding the observed performance  of their system) will find that the course does not align well with their project.
  2. The project has some emipirical data available by the first day of classes of the spring semester. Rather than starting from scratch, ask your research advisor to leverage an existing research project, perhaps started with one of their graduate students, that already has some preliminary data. While some students like to come up with their own research projects, this ideal doesn't play out well with Research Methods and often the capstone concept in general. There is no way to put a deadline on research (and yet the capstone does just that) and starting from scratch basically means not a lot will get done and your won't have your advisor's full resources and time available to you. This is good advice regardless of whether you enroll in Research Methods.

Be sure to confirm with both your academic advisor, the instructor of 691DD, and your Honors Research advisor that Research Methods is the right course for your capstone.