The CSUSB University Honors Program is a community of high-achieving, motivated first-year to senior students who are given opportunities to study and explore the world around them. The students are from all majors and from every college on campus.

Erika Gutierrez, who is a computer science major, said she loves being in the Honors Program and especially the interactions with other program students.

“They’re people who I love being around because they’re the ones that motivate me and push me to do better things, even when I don’t believe in myself,” Gutierrez said. “They’re there for me, to support me and the experiences you’re going to get from there, you’re not going to get anywhere else on campus.”

Gutierrez spent part of her summer at Harvard University, participating in a computer science oriented research project using her computational skills to construct robots.

Biology major Karina Vega spent her summer at Brown University studying the mechanics of musculature, the skeletal system, and the hind parts and tails of alligators.

“Research I am doing as an undergraduate will help me in graduate school because it prepares me for those challenges you’re going to face in the future,” Vega said. “Alligators are related to a group of dinosaurs. So by learning more about how they move and how they walk, we can get inferences on how dinosaurs may have moved and walked.”

Vega said being in the CSUSB Honors Program has helped her.

“The experience of being in the honors program has helped me feel like I’ve become part of a community of people that has similar values and academic goals that I have, and has helped form relationships with these people that help me feel more comfortable at school.”

David Marshall, an associate professor of English and director of the CSUSB Honors Program said the program “offers these students a space to work together, to learn together and to do community service together.”

“Through these opportunities, honors students have built a strong community of scholars who together share a college experience and contribute to the university with their own ideas and efforts,” Marshall said.

For more information on the CSUSB Honors Program visit https://www.csusb.edu/honors-program.

For more information on Cal State San Bernardino, contact the CSUSB Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit http://news.csusb.edu.