News Archive

Why would you spend another year at uni, work harder than ever, and pay an additional year of student fees?

A fourth year of study doing honours is hard work, very hard work. BUT it's also great fun, stimulating and opens up better job opportunities. In addition it enables you to work one on one with highly qualified scientists who are experts in their field. Successful completion of an honours program is also a requirement if you want to go on and study for a PhD.

All the Schools in the Faculty have high quality honours programs that offer a wide range of disciplines for further study. Most of our honours programs are strongly research focused; as well as a major research project some course work is often included in the course.

A recent review of our BSc courses highlighted the quality of our honours programs; and the external international reviewers were very impressed with the quality of the honours students themselves. Entry requirements for honours vary with each speciality but you will need at least an average of 65 in the units at level three that comprise your major.

Now is the time to be thinking about enrolling in honours for 2007. Read about the experiences of some of this year's honours students. You can find out more about applying for honours on the Faculty website https://www.science.uwa.edu.au/for/undergrad/honours .

Anne Dinh

BSc majoring in Anatomy and Human Biology and Biophysics (Honours) 2005 Millions of Australians are rusting inside and most of them don't even know it! This genetic disorder is called haemochromatosis and was the focus of my honours research. I made the decision to enrol in Honours during the third year of my BSc, and I was able to carry on with research that I had begun in that year under the same supervisor.

Although it was possibly one of the most difficult years of my life, in hindsight it was also really fun. After completing my honours year I felt a real sense of achievement which came with discovering something that no one else has discovered before and also successfully sitting several exams.

I am currently working at Scitech while completing my PhD and I will be finishing that off over the next three years. I am not sure what lies ahead, and I guess only time will tell, but I do know that I would not be where I am today if I had not completed my honours year.

Lauren Banting

BSc majoring in Sport and Exercise Science and Human Movement (completing Honours) 2006 During the second semester of my final year I did a work placement with the Department of Sport and Recreation, which I really enjoyed. It prompted me to want to learn more about the community's exercising habits, and I knew that an Honours year would help me to understand the industry better.

My Honours research is focused on measuring people's exercise self-schema, which is like an exercise identity, to see how it affects their actual exercise behaviour. The best part of the project for me is collecting the data and having contact with the participants. The participants have been really interested in the project and many wish to see the final results. It is a great feeling knowing that people can benefit from what I am researching.

I am still considering whether to begin a PhD next year because I can see from my Honours research that there is still a lot to be learnt in this area. I am hoping to find future employment in recreation and community development and feel that having completed an honours year will open up many future possibilities to me.