Where In The World Has The University Honors Program Been?

The University Honors Program (UHP) has continued the tradition of exploration that began with the University Scholars Program’s Cultural Explorations trips nearly twenty five years ago.

From that initial trip to New York City during the spring of 2002, the UHP’s Cultural Explorations have expanded to include international destinations, investigating arts and culture capitals around the world.

The types of trips offered have also been expanded: Outdoor Explorations give students opportunities to explore the natural world and feel the sense of awe, wonder and physical accomplishment it can inspire.

Career Connections helps students connect with alumni, graduate programs and possible employers in cities that have been magnets for NC State graduates. Upper-Level Trips keep older students in the program engaged with UHP staff and each other. Sustainability Trips allow students to explore the ways cities, companies, and individuals are working together to find solutions to the myriad challenges of the modern world.

Experiential Seminars combine academic credit, classroom education and experiential learning to place students directly into the places and spaces they have been studying, shifting the learning process from looking at and reading about to working with and talking to.

These trips build on the Honors Program’s reputation for getting students “out of town,” especially due to the UHP’s two long-running summer study abroad programs. These month-long live-and-learn experiences in Florence, Italy and Oxford, UK, have a history of changing many a student’s global perspective and career trajectory, and, in fact, have inspired the development of an additional summer opportunity!

The UHP is excited to announce its first-ever program on the Asian continent, with the first launch taking place this summer, as students study together at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. This inaugural group will spend five weeks taking classes at one of Asia’s premier universities and exploring one of the world’s great cities. They’ll also travel to South Korea’s second city, the beautiful port of Busan, situated between mountains and the sea, as well as the exquisite “open air museum” of Gyeongju, which served as a dynastic capital for nearly a thousand years, over a thousand years ago.

This past Fall Break, in addition to the annual NYC trip, UHP students explored history and civil rights in Atlanta, Georgia with an alumnus, or they chose from not one but two different ways to explore Seattle, Washington. One such trip had a sustainability focus with an attached Honors Seminar, and looked at Seattle’s efforts to protect the environment while improving public transit and community access. The other was a Career Connections trip that introduced students to alumni living and working in the Emerald City, to companies with sizable cohorts of our graduates working for them and local graduate school offerings.

Approaching Spring Break 2025 trips not only feature a return of the Cultural Explorations trip to Europe, with a group going to Amsterdam and Paris for the week, but two additional European trips that feature a class component, including our first-ever Spring Break Study Abroad Program going to Venice, Italy. Students are studying the urban history of Venice for the semester and taking advantage of a week in the city of canals, seeing firsthand the issues confronting the sinking city from both a cultural and a sustainability-minded perspective.

Another group of UHP students will spend the first half of the semester studying post-socialism in Berlin and the Balkans before going to Germany and Croatia to meet with a variety of organizations working on the myriad of social and political challenges these countries are currently facing.

A fourth group will get to spend their spring break in the great outdoors, exploring the intracoastal waterways and marshes of Eastern North Carolina: four days of paddling, camping and exploring the rich coastal plains of our own home state!

Outdoor Explorations continue to grow, with a new summer opportunity added this past summer, a week exploring Alaska! The trip was incredibly popular, as students clamored for the chance to hike a glacier, kayak among the icebergs, go whale watching and explore Anchorage. It was a fabulous trip that the UHP will be excited to offer again for August 2025. This trip in particular highlighted the impact of a relatively new development for the UHP within the past couple of years, the UHP Experiential Fund.

Through the generosity of financial donors, the UHP Experiential Fund has allowed the Honors Program to sponsor up to nearly 90% of a trip’s costs for students with demonstrated financial need.

In any given year, between 10-15% of participating University Honors Program students get their semesterly program fees waived due to demonstrated financial need. The availability of the UHP Experiential Fund has translated into travel experiences for many Honors students that would not have the opportunity to do so otherwise. For example, an incredible two-thirds of the students that applied for the Alaska trip qualified for Experiential Fund coverage.

This followed on the heels of the UHP’s Experiential HON Seminar, “Puerto Rico After Maria” spring break 2024 trip, where again, two-thirds of the students that studied and visited Puerto Rico with the UHP and course instructor Dr. Maru Gonzalez received funding.

Student feedback not only highlights how valuable and impactful these experiences are, but also emphasizes the essential role this funding plays in a student’s ability to even consider studying abroad as an option from the outset. Lai’la Harris is currently a senior studying biological sciences with aspirations for veterinary school. Last summer, the financing for her Study Abroad program was partially covered by the UHP’s Experiential Fund.

“I greatly appreciate the donation and funding that allowed me to participate in the wildlife management study abroad program in Costa Rica,” Harris said. “Initially upon applying, I wasn’t sure of my ability to actually commit and get to end up participating due to financial restrictions, which left me distraught, as I aspire to have a career in wildlife veterinary medicine. This study abroad program helped me academically, and also boosted my confidence.”

Harris went on to share, “This experience meant so much to me academically, professionally and personally! I had some of the most amazing experiences of my life on this trip…I feel more assured than ever about my academic goals, and the connections I made with the [program’s] faculty have helped me solidify my higher education and professional goals.”

Valerie Hoyos, another funded student, chose to participate in the UHP’s own “British History and Shakespeare in Oxford [UK]” summer Study Abroad program in 2023.

“If it were not for the Experiential Fund grant I would absolutely not have been able to attend Oxford University in any regard,” Hoyos said. “I am immensely grateful for the UHP’s generosity for this opportunity as being able to participate in this study abroad program has changed my life as an intellectual and as an individual.”

Learn more about how Oxford inspired the field of law that Hoyos has dedicated herself to: Student Spotlight: Valerie Hoyos.

Whether an alum chooses to remain engaged as a financial donor, a Career Connection in their new hometown, an Alumni Series speaker, or otherwise, opportunities to connect current and former students are always a win-win. The Honors Program encourages its alumni to respond to the Alumni Engagement survey to share how they are willing to be involved, and to connect with each other via the newly launched NC State University Honors Program LinkedIn page.

Alumni that have previously indicated an interest in traveling with the UHP via the Engagement Survey should remain on the lookout for information about such opportunities coming soon!