Honours

This extra year of study after your undergraduate degree lets you dive deeper into a topic you’re passionate about. If you’re ready to pursue specialised research to unlock your own discoveries, hone your critical thinking skills and get an edge in the job market, an honours degree can get you there.

Honours courses 

If you’re a high achieving student you could be eligible to continue to honours. Honours enables you to engage in advanced study, which offers improved job opportunities, a pathway to study at postgraduate level or and a potential career in research, depending on your aspirations. Honours can also allow you to focus on skills development if you’re interested in carrying out creative projects and can enhance your competitiveness in the job market while allowing you to hone your skills in critical thinking, analysis and writing.

Spend one year researching a topic of your choice, working closely with one of our renowned academics and writing a thesis.

Browse honours courses

Benefits of an honours degree

How does honours work?

Depending on your area of study, honours can be completed by undertaking:

• an additional 24 credit points to your undergraduate degree – for example, Bachelor of Arts Honours in History
• a bachelor course with embedded honours (total 96 credit points) – for example, Bachelor of Engineering Honours in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering
• a combined course with embedded honours (total 120 credit points) – for example, Bachelor of Laws (Honours) / Bachelor of Criminology.

No matter which way you complete your honours, you will need to complete a minimum of:

• a 12 credit point dissertation
• 3 credit points in research training

Choosing your topic

There are two ways to choose an honours topic, aka your program of study. You can choose from a range of available honours opportunities that academics are wanting to partner with students on. Or you can develop your own honours project with your academic supervisor on a unique area you’d like to delve further into.

Developing your project

If you are completing honours through an additional 24 credit points to your undergraduate degree, you will need to develop an honours project that is individual and distinctive.

You will be involved in drafting your honours program of study, which details:

• thesis topic area
• length
• production component
• submission date and supervisor(s)
• details of any coursework including credit points value
• enrolment option (part-time or full-time)
• method(s) of assessment
• when each honours component will be taken.

This document is important as it is used to assess your honours application and ensure that appropriate supervision is available. It is important to work closely with your academic supervisor and we strongly encourage you to have discussions with your potential supervisors before submitting your application.

Your program of study will need to be approved by the Dean of Research, following recommendation by the appropriate Honours Sub-Committee, by the end of the third week of your first semester of honours (timing differs for some courses).

Am I eligible?

Before you apply to study an honours degree, you need to have successfully completed a bachelor degree (or be enrolled in an embedded honours degree) in a relevant subject at Murdoch or another university. Other prerequisites depend on the course, but include receiving a minimum GPA requirement of 2 (or equivalent in your final year of study), and identifying an academic supervisor. Find out more about entry requirements.

Ready to start?

Have a chat to your academic supervisor and prepare your application now.