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Honors College

From Classroom to Career

The Honors Curriculum Through Student Stories

Our new Honors College experiential education curriculum launched in Fall 2018. With our first graduating class of students in 2021, Honors College students are attending top graduate programs in their fields, winning national awards and fellowships, as well as emerging as leaders in the workplace and in their communities. Below, you can see from three students how the experiences they pursued while in the Honors College helped prepare them for success following graduation.   

Photo of Nehemiah Jackson

Nehemiah Jackson (Politics and Law, College of Liberal and Fine Arts)

Honors Experiences:

  • Professional Development: Bexar County District Attorney
  • Service: Citymester City Solutions Seminar
  • Interdisciplinary Seminar: Advocacy and Politics
  • Leadership: Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps 
  • Graduate plans: Commissioned in Air Force as an Officer upon graduation and will later attend law school
Photo of Montana Meeker

Montana Meeker (Management Science, College of Business)

Honors Experiences:

  • Professional Development: City of San Antonio Waste Management - Innovation Division
  • Professional Development: Global Affairs Associate - ESG Consulting
  • Cultural Exploration: Study Abroad in Shanghai
  • Engaged Living: Green Steps Ltd. Cleanup and Environmental Activism (Shanghai)
  • Graduate plans: Joining Venture For America to advance AI solutions internationally through the two-year fellowship as a Programs Specialist with Sheeva.ai
Photo of Favour Obuseh

Favour Obuseh (Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering)

Honors Experiences:

  • Intellectual Achievement: MIT Summer Research Program  
  • Engaged Living: Division 1 Athlete: Track and Field 
  • Engaged Living: Trained to climb Pikes Peak, Colorado
  • Leadership: President, Biomedical Engineering Society 
  • Graduate Plans: Attending Harvard-MIT joint Ph.D. program in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics; National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship recipient and Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow   

Marketable Skills and Learning Outcomes

In Fall 2019, we surveyed San Antonio businesses, non-profits, and civic organizations for their assessment of Honors College students in 6 marketable skill areas: critical thinking and problem-solving, interpersonal skills and communication, and judgment and decision-making. Eleven partners provided feedback, demonstrating how Honors College programming contributed to students’ development of each marketable skill, detailed below:

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

These skills include:

  • The ability to use knowledge, skills, and materials to produce a self/team-designed product, solution, or presentation to an outside agency.
  • The ability to take a major, long-term project from idea to completion.
  • The ability to creatively synthesize information, make significant progress across domains of knowledge, and/or apply skills in unique ways.

Results for student preparation and improvement in these areas:

  • 10/11 partners believed Honors College students were sufficiently prepared for critical thinking skills needed.
  • 7/11 partners believed Honors College students significantly improved critical thinking skills needed. All partners reported some improvement.
  • 8/11 partners believed Honors College students were sufficiently prepared for problem-solving skills needed.
  • 7/11 partners believed Honors College students significantly improved problem-solving skills needed. Only one partner indicated no improvement.

Interpersonal Skills and Communication

These skills include:

  • The ability to appreciate and flourish in a cross-cultural experience.
  • The ability to communicate to a diverse group of audiences. Effective communication should be demonstrated in multiple ways. These include speaking, writing, and thinking; however, truly effective communication also entails demonstrating the impactful use of speaking, writing, and thinking using a diverse array of technologies and multi-media platforms.

Results for student preparation and improvement in these areas:

  • 6/11 partners believed Honors College students were sufficiently prepared for problem-solving skills needed.
  • 7/11 partners believed Honors College students significantly improved problem-solving skills needed. Only one partner indicated no improvement.
  • 6/11 partners believed Honors College students were sufficiently prepared for communication skills needed.
  • 6/11 partners believed Honors College students significantly improved communication skills needed. Only one partner indicated no improvement.

Judgment and Decision-Making

These skills include:

  • The ability to learn from failure, accept constructive criticism, and/or handle setbacks & estranging situations.
  • The self-confidence to deliver high-quality outcomes.
  • The ability to work in a team setting toward producing a "co-authored" accomplishment. The ability to effectively self-direct toward questions, materials, and solutions. The ability to effectively work with a group or individual to solve a multi-layered problem that has multiple possible approaches and solutions.
  • The ability to solve problems and reason to conclusions in ways that consider justice and the moral consequences of both the method and outcome.
  • The ability to clearly demonstrate awareness of the multitude of effects that learning has had upon you and the ways in which your engagement and discovering have impacted others.

Results for student preparation and improvement in these areas:

  • 6/11 partners believed Honors College students were sufficiently prepared for judgment and decision-making skills needed.
  • 6/11 partners believed Honors College students significantly improved judgment and decision-making skills needed.