Michigan Tech students are unique. So is the Pavlis Honors Program.
Maybe you were the five-year-old who knew exactly what you wanted to be when you grew up, and Michigan Tech is the next step in your master plan. Automation. Traveling the world. Finding a cure. Whatever your plan, the Honors Program can help you find the time, space, and opportunities to make it happen.
Or are you still searching? You've got the desire, grit, and intelligence to do anything you want to do. So now you have to narrow it down to the thing you want to do. Take unproductive guesswork out of decision-making and explore your options intentionally through courses, mentors, and a pathway that will help you find your purpose.
Pavlis has what you're looking for
Michigan Tech is all about hands-on learning. The Essential Education program is all about reflection. The Pavlis Honors College accentuates both of these elements to form a distinctively MTU honors program.
Pavlis provides an Honors approach to Essential Education, one that focuses on leadership and professional development, small classes with students from a range of majors, taught by engaging instructors from a variety of fields.
Be deliberate about your Michigan Tech Experience.
In a series of four one-credit seminars, you’ll learn some of the classic elements of leadership: tools for reflection, frameworks for understanding yourself and how others have different preferences and strengths, how to navigate institutions and organizational structures, and how to tell your story.
The hands-on element of the curriculum lies in the experience course, a sub-set of Essential Education Experiences that engage stakeholders outside of MTU and contain project work. In some of these courses, the experience is built in -- study away, for instance, or courses that engage in community-engaged projects. In others, the student selects their own experience: for example, the leadership of a campus organization or a service project that the student initiates. In these experience courses, students engage with each other and an instructor to learn skills to enhance their project work, to reflect on the experience, and to respond to the inevitable surprises that come with project-based learning. A key element of the Essential Education Experience is a showcase portfolio in which students tell the story of their experience and what they learned.
Pavlis has what employers and graduate schools are looking for
We know companies want to hire Huskies—a Michigan Tech degree means you're ready for day one on the job. Honors recognition on your transcript means you're ready for the future. Put yourself at the head of a competitive pack with honors on your transcript and a portfolio of experiences that will show you have what employers are looking for: the abilities to adapt, communicate, self-manage, learn, and lead, backed by an academic enhancement that showcases in-depth study.
Going beyond GPA
You're here to escape your comfort zone, grow, and redefine what success means to you. That's why grades aren't an artificial barrier at the Pavlis Honors College. Sure, we expect excellent academic effort. But you can't let worries about not getting an "A" hold you back. Our students are powered by a collective, fearless desire to impact the world; to be open to the totally new and unfamiliar; and to form communities and relationships that are inclusive and productive.
So take a course in something that's always interested you, even if you've never had previous training. Stay up late a few nights perfecting your business pitch, tracking a nocturnal animal for a research field study, or organizing a voting drive. What will have a lasting impact: taking chances and taking advantage of the time, opportunities, and experts available to you at Tech? Finding out what you love and what you'd like to avoid? Or staying in your lane and maintaining a perfect 4.0?
