Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours)

The Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) is a specialised year of study for students who have achieved academic excellence in their undergraduate degree. An honours year enables you to extend your knowledge of your area of specialisation.

The Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) is an advanced and specialised course of study requiring a higher standard of performance than a pass degree. It offers a broad range of Arts programs in humanities, social sciences and languages and enhances students' ability to acquire advanced research and analytical skills and develop original ideas. It augments students' ability to apply innovative solutions to complex problems. Students may specialise in one area of study (pure honours) or two (combined honours) depending on specialisation.

This extra year of study on top of your three-year Bachelor of Arts degree is designed to qualify you for graduate research degrees (Doctor of Philosophy - Arts or Masters by Research). Most undergraduate degrees offer an honours option. Honours gives you advanced research, analytical and communications skills, plus greater experience working on independent projects. It can also reduce the length of time by up to a year for some Masters degrees offered at the University of Melbourne.

The Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) is available to students who have completed a Bachelor of Arts degree within the last five years.

The Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) degree requires the completion of 100 points of study at fourth-year level.

• Pure honours usually consists a 50 point thesis (15,000 words), a research methods subject (12.50 points) and three coursework subjects (37.50) in one area of study
• Combined honours usually consists of a 50 points thesis (15,000 words) and a research methods subject (12.50 points) in one area of study, and three coursework subjects in the combined area of study (37.50 points)
• There is no combined honours option for Psychology, Economics, Geography, Classics or Ancient World Studies

Honours students are required to achieve an honours grade (ie. H1, H2A, H2B, H3) for each subject and thesis component of their course in order to complete to the degree.

For information on policies that govern this degree students should refer to the information on the Melbourne Policy Library.

Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) graduates:

• Demonstrate an advanced knowledge and understanding of one or more selected fields of study in core disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and languages
• Demonstrate high level research skills appropriate to one or more core disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and languages
• Access and comprehend national and international debates in their specialised area(s) of study
• Demonstrate an independent approach to knowledge that uses rigorous methods of inquiry and appropriate theories and methodologies that are applied with intellectual honesty and a respect for ethical values
• Apply critical and analytical skills and methods to the identification and resolution of problems within complex changing social contexts
• Act as informed and critically discriminating participants within the community of scholars, as citizens and in the work force
• Communicate effectively and, in the case of those students specialising in a language discipline, read, write and speak another language with fluency and appreciate its cultural context