Co-curricular Experiences

General Guidelines

Many forms of campus participation have value, and we encourage UHP students to involve themselves in such activities. However, in the UHP curriculum we want to emphasize programs that are complementary to academic and scholarly development. Eligible experiences should require you to intentionally reference and integrate knowledge from your curriculum in an applied fashion and involve active accountability through supervision, mentorship, instruction, etc.

Thus, eligible co-curricular experiences do not include routine participation or leadership in campus clubs or “student life” activities.

Experiences should be propose through the Experiential Contract option in HAL prior to undertaking the experience.
One kind of experience may be repeated. For example, a student might satisfy the "Experience" requirement through three seasons of debate team participation, three undergraduate research experiences, etc.
An experience that is formally required by your declared major may only be counted as one of the three co-curricular experiences if an additional enrichment and/or intellectual product is approved.
If extracurricular leadership or service experiences are associated with a for-credit academic experience, students can explore the possibility of contracting that course for Honors credit.
This list will develop over time and can never be truly comprehensive. Students can propose (by contract) other experiences that are well thought out, meaningfully challenging, and contributory to their intellectual and academic development, pending approval by the appropriate College coordinator and the UHP staff. In such instances, the student should articulate a clear connection to his/her academic curriculum.

Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate research is intrinsically valuable, requiring students to integrate information from a variety of sources in order to formulate both questions and strategies for answering those questions. It also exposes students to skills and techniques that they might employ in their professional futures.

If you are earning academic credit for undergraduate research involvement, we would prefer that apply under the "Courses" requirement. In that instance, there is no need to create a contract. We can bring the credits into HAL automatically (just let the office know if they are not showing up).

If you choose to participate in research but do not earn academic credit for that experience, you will need to create a co-curricular experience contract in order to record your involvement for the UHP.

Note that a single experience cannot be counted in both categories. In addition, credit hours linked to the completion of the UHP Project may not be used to satisfy either the "Courses" or “Experience” requirement.

Students may satisfy an “Experience” requirement by completing a defined undergraduate research project. You can also satisfy one of the three “Experience” requirements by participating in an ongoing project for a full semester or summer. Eligible participation should include a meaningful number of hours, active engagement with research/inquiry objectives,and significant opportunities for skill development during the course of the semester.

Three distinct research projects, or three distinct semesters of undergraduate research experience, may be used to satisfy all three “Experience” requirements. Research experiences for academic credit can satisfy "Experience" requirements, if other Honors courses have already satisfied your "Courses" requirement.

Instructional/Tutoring Experiences

The act of helping other students learn requires a level of synthesis that builds a greater understanding of and appreciation for the subject at hand while simultaneously developing a number of presentational, and analytical skills.

Several types of university employment related to teaching and instruction may be counted in the “Experience” category:

Teaching Assistants (for any for-credit class). This includes Learning Assistants for CAT Communities, LEAD 212 Class Leaders and CAPD Peer Educators.
Paraprofessionals for the Academic & Career Information Center
Writing Center Peer Tutors
University Experience Instructor
Tutors employed by an official university unit. To list a few examples: Educational Supportive Services, Scholars Assisting Scholars, Chemistry Help Room, and K-State Athletics
Work as private tutor. In this instance, the work must be verifiable and substantial, both in terms of hours worked and sustained engagement with the subject matter. We recommend approximately 100 hours total. If the number of hours per week is small, you may contract a longer term of participation in order to establish a meaningful experience.

International Experiences

Internationalization, articulated as part of the 2025 Strategic Action Plan, is an overarching goal of Kansas State University and a potentially invaluable addition to the breadth of perspective and range of competencies that students can apply to all aspects of their education.

Study Abroad

Any international experience that bears academic credit may count as an experience, so long as credit is awarded by K-State or accepted as transfer credit once successfully completed. Students completing two semesters abroad, or a semester and a summer abroad, will be considered as satisfying two experiences, even if both terms take place in the same host country. Note that a study abroad experience of ten weeks or longer may serve as the basis for the UHP Scholarly Project (with prior approval) but that a study abroad experience may not satisfy one of the three “Experience” requirements if it is used as the basis for the UHP Scholarly Project.

Service Abroad

International Service Teams participation through the Staley School of Leadership may also count as an eligible experience. A number of external opportunities exist for international service.

Those may be contracted provided that they:

Clearly connect to your academic major.
Are responsibly verified by a campus mentor/supervisor.
Have a duration of three weeks or longer.

Internships

Internships demand that students apply knowledge from their curriculums in a real-world setting, so much so that most employers will only consider interns who have completed some portion of their undergraduate education and/or certain courses. Thus, internships are an important complement to and application of what a student learns in the classroom, and we intend to encourage the pursuit of meaningful internships through their inclusion here. The range of potential internships makes generalization difficult. However, we can establish some general parameters.

We expect UHP students to represent the best tradition of K-State students by performing all legitimate work with enthusiastic reliability, no matter how small or mundane. At the same time, an internship that fills a requirement for the University Honors Program should also entail substantial, relevant and documentable responsibilities that contribute to skill development and knowledge.
When contracting the experience, students should be able to articulate the relevance of the planned internship to their academic studies and to their aspirations.
Internships should entail a minimum of approximately 100 hours of activity regardless of the timeframe (summer or semester).
We do not intend to distinguish between paid, volunteer or for-credit internship opportunities in this context so long as the substance of the internship appears valid.
To reiterate, approval for internships should be obtained, via HAL, prior to the start of the activity. As part of this process, the student must be able to identify an individual in the K-State community who can fulfill the “faculty supervisor” role by verifying satisfactory completion of the internship.

Note that a full-time internship experience of ten weeks or longer may serve as the basis for the UHP Scholarly Project (with prior approval) but an internship may not satisfy one of the three “Experience” requirements if it is used as the basis for the UHP Scholarly Project.

Competition Teams

Kansas State University has many academic competition teams that require the integrative application of what students have learned in multiple classroom settings. A full season of participation on a competition team will count as a UHP experience under three conditions:

Team participation must require meaningful preparation and/or practice prior to the competition, at least equivalent to the time expended for a demanding one-credit hour course.
Team sponsors/coaches must ultimately verify that full and meaningful participation was offered throughout the season (through HAL).
Participation must include at least one tournament or multi-institution event. We note that, in some kinds of competitions, “full participation” may require more than one event.

We emphasize once again that competitions should be co-curricular, affiliated with an academic College, and not extracurricular in nature. Participation on NCAA or intramural sports teams, or related activities such as marching band or cheerleading, cannot satisfy this requirement.

Here is a sample list of eligible teams. With the recent passage of the new curriculum, we emphasize that this list is expected to evolve over time. We will be in conversation with the Colleges to help us determine additional teams that deserve inclusion (such as design competitions associated with the College of Architecture, Planning and Design).

In addition, this list does not intend to exclude competitions that do not occur annually but would still offer a similarly meaningful co-curricular experience. Student involvement with the Solar House competition several years ago, for example, would clearly be an eligible experience.

This list does intend to exclude participation in competitions that require little advance preparation and are primarily an evaluation of skills or knowledge on the day(s) of the event.

Aero Design
Ag Economics Marketing
ASHRAE Design
Baja Car
Business Ethics Case Competition
ChemE Car
Collegiate Wind Competition
Concrete Canoe
Crops Judging
Cyber Defense
Dairy Cattle Judging
Dairy Products Evaluation
Debate
Food Product Development
Formula Car Design
Fountain Wars
Horse Judging

Human-Powered Vehicle Design
Landscape Contracting
Livestock Judging
Meat Judging
Mock Trial
Model UN
Personal Financial Planning
Poultry Judging
Putnam Seminar/Math Competition
Quarter Scale Tractor
Robotics (ECE or BAE)
Salina Flight
Soils Judging
Speech Unlimited
Steel Bridge
Unmanned Aerial Systems
Weed Judging
Wool Judging

Additional Courses

While we hope that students will view the “Experience” requirement as an encouragement to seek out co-curricular involvement, we also want to affirm the value of cultivating intellectual curiosity through the pursuit of additional Honors coursework. Thus, students may also choose to satisfy one or more of the three “Experience” requirements with additional Honors-eligible, for-credit courses. Here are the essential parameters:

Eligible courses must be approved for UHP credit, either through formal designation as an Honors course or through an approved Honors course contract.
Any single course may only satisfy one of the three “Experience” requirements, irrespective of the number of credit hours attached to it.
A course with a high number of credit hours can be applied, instead, under the “Courses” requirement if the student wishes to maximize its impact within the UHP curriculum.