General Information
The McBride Honors Program, instituted in 1978 through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a 24 semester-hour program of seminars and off-campus activities that has this primary goal: To provide a select number of engineering students the opportunity to cross the boundaries of their technical expertise and to gain the sensitivity to prove, project, and test the moral and social implications of their future professional judgments and activities not only for the particular organizations with which they will be involved, but also for the nation and, indeed, the world.
To achieve this goal, the program seeks to bring themes from the humanities and the social sciences into the engineering curriculum that will encourage in students the habits of thought necessary for effective management and enlightened leadership.
Unique Curriculum
Designed by teams of faculty members from the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and engineering, the curriculum of the McBride Honors Program features the educational experiences listed here.
Summer Practicum
A central experience in the program is the Practicum, which comes during the summer following the junior year. Leadership and management demand an understanding of the accelerating pace of change that marks the social, political, and economic currents of society. While all the seminars in the program are designed to nourish such an understanding, the goal of the Practicum is to put students into situations where they can observe firsthand management and decision-making processes of the kind that will challenge them in their professional lives.
Foreign Study
As a possible option in the Practicum, Honors students may choose foreign study during the summer of the junior year, either through CSM-sponsored trips (if interest warrants), or through individual plans arranged in consultation with the Director. The cost of any foreign study is the responsibility of the student.
Admission: Leadership, Versatility, Communication
The McBride Honors Program seeks to enroll students who can profit most from, and contribute most to, the learning experiences upon which the program is based -- the idea being to bring bright young minds into situations where they will be challenged not only by the faculty, but also by their colleagues. Whereas many more conventional honors programs admit students almost exclusively on the basis of academic record, in the McBride Honors Program test scores, grade point, and class rank form only part of the criteria used in the admission process. Students must demonstrate their leadership potential, versatility of mind, and writing and speaking abilities through an essay and through an interview with two faculty members.
Although the educational experiences in the McBride Honors Program are rigorous and demand a high degree of persistence from the students, CSM graduates who have completed the program have gained positions of their choice in industry more easily than others and have been quite successful in winning admission to high-quality graduate and professional schools.
See the Standards for Student Performance in the CSM Bulletin for specific academic requirements that McBride students must adhere to.
