December 2024 Graduates
PREPARE FOR GRADUATION
1. Apply to graduate for Fall 2024 graduation through MyPortal.
2. Complete the Honors Ceremony survey by noon on October 22, 2024. This form indicates to us when you're planning to graduate.
3. Submit your completed Bachelor’s Essay to the Honors Online Repository by noon on Monday, December 2. The Bachelor’s Essay will be due to your professor at a time that you have agreed upon with them. Ask your professor about his or her deadline. Instructions for completing and submitting your Bachelor’s Essay can be found on the Hub (Click the Bachelor's Essay tab above).
4. Complete the Honors College senior survey (the link will be made available after Thanksgiving Break). This is a MANDATORY exit survey that must be completed by ALL graduating Honors College seniors. The data collected from this anonymous survey is used in our evaluation of the Honors College experience. Your Honors College experience was influenced by the feedback we received from those graduates who came before you, so please do take ~15 minutes to help us improve Honors for future students. Please complete this by Monday, December 2.
5. Complete the Honors senior profile form. We use this survey information to track where our alumni are headed next, so the information should reflect both your College accomplishments and your current thoughts about your future plans.
6. Mark your calendars! December graduates are welcome to participate in our celebratory events for graduates that takes place in May like the Honors College senior boat cruise and the Honors College graduation ceremony. Read below for more details.
May 2025 Graduates
PREPARE FOR GRADUATION
1. Complete the Honors Ceremony survey by noon on October 22, 2024. This form indicates to us when you're planning to graduate.
2. Apply to graduate for Spring 2025 graduation through MyPortal.
3. Complete the Honors senior profile form and upload an updated Resume to OAKS (the form will be made available in mid-March). All seniors must complete the Honors senior profile by noon on Friday, April 25, 2025. We use this survey information to create a personalized narrative for the Honors graduation ceremony, so the information should reflect both your College accomplishments and your current thoughts about your future plans. Please also submit an updated resume to OAKS, as we often pull information from there as well. If you'd like to update your senior profile after you've submitted it (with updated news about your job search, say, or grad school acceptance), you can do so by email to honors@cofc.edu with the subject “Senior Profile Update.”
4. Complete the Honors College Senior Survey (the survey will be made available in mid-March). This is a MANDATORY exit survey that must be completed by ALL graduating Honors College seniors. The data collected from this anonymous survey is used in our evaluation of the Honors College experience. Your Honors College experience was influenced by the feedback we received from those graduates who came before you, so please do take ~15 minutes to help us improve Honors for future students. Please complete this by Wednesday, April 23.
5. Submit your completed Bachelor’s Essay to the Honors Online Repository by noon on Wednesday, April 23. The Bachelor’s Essay will be due to your professor at a time that you have agreed upon with them. Ask your professor about his or her deadline. Instructions for completing and submitting your Bachelor’s Essay can be found on the Hub (Click the Bachelor's Essay tab above).
6. Submit a professional-style headshot (jpg or png file, please) as an email attachment to honors@cofc.edu by Noon on Friday, April 25.
7. Email honors@cofc.edu with 4 or 5 of your favorite photos from your time at CofC by noon on Friday, April 25 (we use these photos in a slideshow to be shown at the Honors graduation ceremony).
8. Mark your calendars for our Honors College celebratory graduation events including the Honors College senior boat cruise and the Honors College graduation ceremony (dates and details below).
9. Stay in touch! We want to hear about all the places you go and your incredible post-grad experiences. Please join the College of Charleston Honors College Alumni LinkedIn group, share your post-grad updates with us by email or social media, and stop in to see us whenever you're back on campus for a visit!
HONORS COLLEGE CLASS OF 2025 BOAT CRUISE
To celebrate your success over the past four years, the Honors College is inviting all graduating Honors students to join us for a Blues & BBQ tour of Charleston Harbor. The cruise is scheduled for Thursday, May 1; boarding begins at 6:30 p.m. and the ship sets sail from the Charleston Maritime Center (10 Wharfside St.) promptly at 7:00 p.m. for a two-hour trip around the harbor.
Join your fellow Honors graduates and Honors College faculty/staff for live music, a BBQ buffet, and a cash bar. Event details and registration instructions will be released in March of 2025.
2025 HONORS COLLEGE CEREMONY
Thursday, May 8, 2025
9:00 a.m
What is the Honors Ceremony?
The Honors Ceremony is a celebration of of graduating Honors College students. Members of the Honors community—including faculty, staff, and college administration—join together with your family and friends to commemorate all you've accomplished in your time within the Honors College. The Honors Ceremony takes place during the College's commencement weekend, and is separate from the College-wide commencement ceremony. You can check out photos from previous ceremonies to get a better idea of what the event looks like.
Does the Honors Ceremony replace CofC commencement?
The Honors Ceremony is a separate event that takes place in addition to the College-wide commencement ceremonies. At the Honors Ceremony, you'll receive an Honors College certificate acknowledging that you completed the Honors requirements, as well as an Honors College medal. Then, at your CofC commencement ceremony, you'll receive your college diploma. The Honors Ceremony is scheduled such that it does not conflict with any of the College's commencement ceremonies so that graduating Honors students and their families can attend both events.
Who is invited to the Honors College Ceremony?
Members of the campus community, including faculty, staff, and senior administrators, will all be in attendance to celebrate your success! This includes your BE advisor, who receive an invitation as long as you included their name when you registered for the Honors Ceremony (If you did research off campus and would like to extend an invitation to that advisor, please send their name and their affiliated organization to Mary Moser, moserm@cofc.edu by Friday, April 11).
In addition to campus guests, each graduating Honors student is allowed to invite up to five guests so that their family and friends can attend the ceremony. We will mail out formal invitations to your families in March. Guest ticketing details are below.
How does ticketing for the Honors Ceremony work?
Each graduating senior will be allocated up to five guest tickets for the ceremony (in addition to a separate ticket for themselves). Starting at noon on Wednesday, April 23, graduates will be able to pick up their tickets in the main office of the Honors Center (10 Green Way) during normal business hours. Tickets will be available for pickup between April 23 and May 7. When you arrive to pickup your tickets, we'll ask you to confirm how many tickets you need for the ceremony. If you do not need all five of your allocated tickets, the unused tickets will be added to a lottery pool for those students requesting additional tickets. Students who request additional tickets will be added to this ticket lottery system. Once all graduates have had a chance to pick up their tickets, any extra tickets will be allocated at random to those in the ticket pool, based on availability. Any additional tickets will be distributed on Thursday, May 8, the day before the ceremony. (The Honors College does not condone the sale or exchange of ceremony tickets between students!) Note that ticketing for the College's commencement ceremonies are handled differently, and you learn more about that process on the commencement website.
If you have questions about the above, please email honors@cofc.edu. And of course, congratulations!
Please read the following information regarding your Bachelor’s Essay. There is also a link below explaining how to submit the Bachelor’s Essay to the online repository.
Instructions for Completing and Submitting your Bachelor’s Essay to the Honors College Repository
To fulfill Honors College requirements, you must submit the following—using the relevant Honors College forms linked below—by Monday, December 2 (December ’24 graduate) or Wednesday, April 23 (May ’25 graduate):
- An electronic copy of your Bachelor’s Essay, with the official Title Page form, submitted through the Electronic Bachelor’s Essay system.
- It is the choice of the advisor(s) whether to use a title page which requires signature(s) or to use a title page without signature(s)
Please note that you will submit a final version of your Bachelor’s Essay to your BE Advisor (and, if relevant, your Secondary Reader) in advance of the official submission deadline to allow time for final reading and approval.
If you have a single Bachelor’s Essay Advisor and no Secondary Reader, please complete the Single Advisor BE Electronic Title Page and the Single Advisor BE Signature Page.
If you have a Secondary Reader as well as a Primary Advisor, please complete the Secondary Reader BE Electronic Title Page and Secondary Reader BE Signature Page.
Please complete the relevant forms as follows:
- Where indicated by brackets on the forms, please enter:
- Your Bachelor’s Essay title
- Your degree (Bachelor of Arts and/or Bachelor of Science degree)
- Your major(s)
- Your name
- The date and year of graduation (e.g. May 2022)
- The name of your BE Advisor and, if relevant, the Secondary Reader
- Remove all brackets and replace all red text with black text
- Cut-and-Paste the edited Title Page as a single page at the start of your Bachelor’s Essay before submitting it electronically.
Submitting Your Bachelor’s Essay Electronically
The online Bachelor’s Essay Submission System provides a simple process for describing and uploading your essay.
Once submitted, your submission will be reviewed and then published to the Institutional Repository portal provided by College of Charleston Libraries.
**Step-by-step instructions for submitting your Bachelor’s Essay electronically are available here.
Bachelor’s Essay Title Pages and Advisor Forms
It is the choice of the advisor(s) whether to use a title page which requires signature(s) or to use a title page without signature(s).