To be eligible to apply for concentration honors in anthropology, a student may have 3.0 GPA within his concentration, but in French studies, honors concentrators must earn a 4.0. To graduate with honors, however, both students will write a thesis.
Although the College Curriculum Council must approve all concentration requirements, both honors and regular, the council strives to maintain a diversity of requirements in addition to the thesis among different departments, said Dean of the College Paul Armstrong.
Honors advisers in many different departments said that most students apply for honors because they want to write a thesis. "Students usually have a project in mind when they apply for honors," said Gretchen Schultz, a French studies honors concentration adviser. Although non-honors concentrators in French cannot write a thesis, they can write a senior paper, which is smaller and less rigorous than the honors thesis, she added.
English adviser Olakunle George agreed that the honors track is designed for students with a specific thesis topic or project in mind. The department, however, does have a junior honors seminar to help students find a topic, he said.
Caroline Karp, the honors concentration adviser in the Department of Environmental Studies believes that everyone, regardless of honors, should write a thesis. Her department requires a thesis to graduate even with the non-honors concentration. "In my personal opinion, all students would benefit from writing a senior thesis," she said. Senior theses allow a student to synthesize his or her academic knowledge and apply it to a specific problem, she explained.
Honors theses are usually a yearlong project, with a semester of research and a semester of writing. Some departments, such as the Department of History, have a pre-thesis seminar to teach research methods and develop a topic. Others, like the departments of International Relations and English, have a concurrent senior seminar to help honors concentrators through the thesis writing process.
Students also gain practical experience from writing a thesis or capstone paper, Karp added. "Many students find their first job is in an area pertaining to their thesis," she said.
Armstrong, however, insisted that a thesis is not a good idea for every student. In some concentrations, like computer science, scholarly ideas change so quickly that a thesis is not a practical way to contribute to the field, he said. He also argued that a thesis would prevent students from taking more courses outside of their concentrations to broaden the scope of their education.
Alexandra Coria '05, who is currently writing an honors thesis in Environmental Studies, agreed that theses prevent seniors from branching out academically. "People can lose interest in what they are studying. My interests have shifted just this year and now I would rather not write a thesis and take more community healthy classes," she said. Writing a thesis is a useful academic exercise, because it allows you to delve deeply into a topic, but it shouldn't be a requirement for everyone, she added.
Most students who do decide to write a thesis are proud and satisfied with the process, said Kenneth Sacks, the honors concentration adviser in the Department of History. "In an ideal world, it would be great if all history concentrators could write a thesis, but with 160 concentrators, it isn't possible," he said.
