The Honors Program curriculum includes HP classes focused on research and also includes courses (up to a combined total of six credits) offered by two premier Georgia Tech research partner programs--the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program, and the President’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) program--and HP-Authorized Independent Research Courses (up to three credits). 

VIP courses and PURA salary-award audit courses share the characteristic elements of Honors Program classes and allow Honors Program students to pursue their research passion while earning credits counted toward the Honors Program curriculum. Honors Program students must apply and be accepted to the VIP program to enroll in VIP courses, and must apply and win PURA salary awards to enroll in associated audit courses.  HP-Authorized Independent Research Courses allow students to pursue their research passion with Georgia Tech faculty members.

Because our HP students have diverse research interests—beyond those we can offer as HP classes—we encourage HP students to pursue the following three options for counting up to six non-HP credits toward their 15-credit HP curricular requirement.  Note that listed HP classes (listed here), VIP courses, and HP-authorized independent research courses all can count both toward the HP curricular requirement and to the HP Pathway in Research.

HP students may count any combination of VIP (up to 6), PURA (up to 6), and HP-Authorized Independent Research Course credits (up to 3) credits toward the 15-credit HP curricular requirement. For example:

• 6 VIP = 6                  
• 6 PURA = 6  
• 4 VIP + 2 PURA = 6
• 3 VIP + 3 HP-Authorized Independent Research Course = 6
• 2 VIP + 2 PURA + 2 HP-Authorized Independent Research Course = 6