Claire Danes was honoured with the Hasty Pudding Theatricals' 2012 Woman of the Year award at Harvard University on Thursday.

The "Homeland" actress was paraded through the streets of Cambridge, Boston in an open-topped car flanked by two drag queens before proving herself worthy of the award by completing a series of tasks -- including a recital of a faux-Elizabethan monologue about genitals and a dance-off with a person dressed as a virus.

Claire -- who was accompanied to the event at the prestigious university by her "Martha Marcy May Marlene" actor husband Hugh Dancy -- called the experience "wackadoodle" and "utterly trippy," before adding: "This is so contrary to what we associate with Harvard."

Hasty Pudding Theatricals president James P. Fitzpatrick and vice president Ryan P. Halprin teased the actress about her studies at ivy league rival Yale saying: "Claire made waves after leaving Yale after two years....two years is a normal amount of time to spend at a community college."

When accepting the traditional pudding pot award, Claire joked: "This is as empty as a Yale degree! You know you are outside the boundaries of Hollywood when a woman receives an award from which she can eat.

"I do like to eat. I do like to eat me some pudding. I do like the taste of it. This is awesome. This is really awesome. This experience will remain forever emblazoned in my mind."