What are the requirements of the Honours year?
The Honours year is comprised of 48 units of credit (UOC). The compulsory research project contributes 18 UOC to the total. In addition to the project work, each student will undertake five courses of 6 UOC each. The project represents 18/48 of the final mark.
Honours students each present a seminar of 15 - 30 minutes on their thesis to members of the academic staff, interested visitors and other students. In addition to the thesis, Honours students will attend a "viva voce" to show they master their research topic.
Students will attend sessions organised by the Honours Coordinators in which they practise their final honours seminar presentation, listen to presentations of other honours students, and engage in other honours training activities. Students should also attend any appropriate seminars in their thesis area. Participation is compulsory.
Prospective students should start talking to staff members about possible thesis topics well before they start their Honours year. An early decision about a topic will facilitate an early start on reading. Supervision by individual staff members is dependent on staff agreement and availability.
For more detailed and comprehensive information about the Honours Project, please see the Information page.
On the use of generative AI in your honours thesis
As the production of the thesis involves some planning or creative processes, you are permitted to use software to generate initial text and structure. However, you must develop or edit the text and structure to such a significant extent that what is submitted is your own work, i.e. only occasional AI generated words or phrases may form part of your final submission. Such use must be attributed and appropriately referenced within the thesis itself. You are additionally required to submit the original AI generated responses, this may be either done as an appendix to the thesis or separately to either your honours coordinator or supervisor.
If the outputs of generative AI such as ChatGPT form part of your submission and is not appropriately attributed, it will be regarded as serious academic misconduct and subject to the standard penalties, which may include 00FL, suspension and exclusion.
Structure & requirements
When enrolling, an Honours student nominates their Honours stream, which is one of Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics, Statistics and Physical Oceanograph (available to Advanced Science students). However, your choice of courses is not restricted to your own department or stream.
Before enrolling, you must discuss your choice of courses with the Honours Coordinator for your stream. The application form and further information can be found on the main Honours page.
All Honours courses are timetabled centrally. Once fixed, the timetable for these courses will be available through myUNSW.
External courses: With the permission of the relevant Honours Coordinator, a student may take a course from other disciplines at UNSW, other mathematics schools (for example, at University of Sydney), and external courses/ projects such as those taught at the AMSI Summer School and those offered through the Advanced Collaborative Environment. Normally at most one course can be external, or in exceptional cases, two.
AMSI Summer school enrolment
To undertake courses at the AMSI Summer School, students are required to complete the AMSI Summer School Application on-line. You are also required to have the courses approved by your Honours Coordinator and complete a form for UNSW enrolment. Please read the School's guidelines on the rules and assessment for AMSI Summer School courses.
Honours mark and grades
The marks for the thesis and Honours courses will be combined to give a weighted average mark, forming a final Honours mark which will be rounded up and used to decide the grade of Honours the student will be awarded.
The final Honours mark corresponds to the following grades:
- 85 or above: Class I
- 75 or above: Class IIA
- 65 or above: Class IIB
- 50 or above: Class III
Students with a final mark of 95 or above may be recommended for a University Medal by the School.