About the Honors Humanities Living and Learning Program
Honors Humanities is a prestigious undergraduate program for academically talented students who come from majors across campus and who share a passion for the arts and humanities and a desire for a well-rounded education.
Our Program
Entering freshmen participate by invitation in Honors Humanities, a two-year living/learning program at the University of Maryland. The program is organized around a diverse and interdisciplinary curriculum. It culminates in an independent research, service or creative project (the "Keystone Project") that a student designs and executes with the guidance of a faculty mentor.
Honors Humanities provides students with engaging classes, fun extracurricular activities, life-long friendships, a lively home in Anne Arundel Hall and opportunities to take advantage of the intellectual, social, and cultural riches of the Washington, D.C. region. Upon completion of the program, students earn an Honors Humanities citation, and this award is recorded on their university transcripts.
Who We Are
- Current students come from 64 different majors, making us one of the most academically diverse living-learning programs on campus.
- Our students love to create and study music, literature, film, TV, digital media, philosophy, law, art, and other media and subjects, and they share a desire to have a positive impact during college and after.
- We aim to create the feel of a small-liberal arts program within a large research university.
- We cultivate a nurturing community that values and practices respect for the marvelous diversity of human identities and experiences.
- We offer a curriculum that is multidisciplinary and global in its outlook and takes advantage of the Baltimore-Washington region and the world as our classroom via field trips, guest speakers, and more.
What We Do
- We cultivate a love of, as well as skills in, writing, speaking, analysis, persuasion, creativity and service.
- We use the past as a laboratory in which to understand and meet the challenges that the world must address today.
- We utilize the tools of the arts and humanities for self-discovery and self-formation.
- We empower each of our students to define and complete a personal capstone project using research, creativity or service.
What We Value
Fearless Ideas: Philosophy, literature, history, and the arts provide a wealth of great ideas which allow us to see ourselves and the world in new ways and to think afresh about our values, goals, and ambitions.
Wide-spread Application: The Arts and Humanities provide essential tools to address social, political, and cultural issues such as climate change, immigration, the power of social media, and political partisanship. We count internships as part of our program requirements.
Diverse Perspectives: Diverse perspectives challenge students to engage situations from multiple angles, often leading them to new insights and discoveries. Multidisciplinary tools and perspectives are used by myriad innovators, including humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam as well as companies such as Google. Honors Humanities offers students the chance to make connections across the arts, literature, and history and provides an ideal complement to majors in business, engineering, science, and social science.
Global Thinking: We live in an interconnected world which invites us to honor our shared humanity but also to value differences of culture, identity, and experience. We encourage study abroad and count it toward our program requirements.
Service and Sustainability: In our lifetimes, we will live through many humanitarian crises as well as far-reaching environmental transformation. As people continue to connect across borders, and as humans come to dominate most aspects of planetary life, humanities perspectives can both help us interpret our changing world and they can offer solutions. Throughout the year, we host service and sustainability events, including Humaniday, an annual day of service for the entire HoHum community. In one of our core classes, we bring humanities perspectives to global issues like environmental justice. We also recently partnered with UMD's Green Office and the Office of Sustainability to acquire our Green Office certification.
Why Choose Honors Humanities?
You’ll be part of a tight-knit community of peers, mentors and alumni.
As one of the smaller living and learning programs in the Honors College, we pride ourselves on cultivating a welcoming and intellectually stimulating atmosphere, where you will form real and close relationships with your fellow HoHummers and with faculty.
With such a community, you will get the experience of attending a small liberal arts school, while also gaining the benefits of a large state university. Join us to make your closest college friends and to connect with faculty who get to know you and sincerely care about your development as a student and a person.
You’ll get the benefits of a humanities education, whatever your major.
About 20% of our 2019 freshmen class are majors in the College of Arts and Humanities; the other 80% are majoring in a myriad of majors, including sciences, engineering, social sciences, journalism and public policy, among others. This program offers you the opportunity to either balance your education or deepen your engagement with the arts and humanities. Whatever your major, Honors Humanities will ensure that you enjoy the many benefits of a humanities education. Some general benefits include:
- Excelling in critical thinking skills.
- Cultivating visionary leadership skills.
- Excelling on graduate school entrance exams.
- Enjoying coursework that encourages you to authentically grow as a person and a professional.
You’ll build skills for your career.
Increasingly, employers in many fields are looking for people with solid critical thinking and written and oral communication skills, all of which our program emphasizes.
Moreover, our program offers the kind of close mentorship and intellectual atmosphere that encourages you to find the career that you will find most satisfying.