Senior Thesis Seminar
Lasting for the entire academic year, the Senior Thesis Seminar (History 197S/198S) offers senior history majors the opportunity to produce a Senior Thesis, representing an original contribution to historical knowledge. Thesis Seminar students each choose the topics of their own thesis. Under the supervision of individual advisors—usually members of the History faculty—and the Seminar Director(s), students engage in research and writing about their topic. Most seminar meetings are devoted to students’ presentations of research and writing in progress. Seminar students thus work to become a community of scholars, providing vigorous criticism and mutual support for each other’s work. The high critical standards, recurrent scrutiny, and accelerated pace of the seminar encourage the clear conceptualization, intensive original research, and lucid writing that distinguish successful theses, which can earn the graduating senior Distinction in the Major. A Senior Thesis of particularly high quality, as judged by a committee of History Faculty, will receive the William T. Laprade Prize (sometimes shared by two students). Students winning the Laprade Prize automatically graduate with highest distinction in the major. The Honors Committee may also grant, as it deems appropriate, highest distinction and/or high distinction to other students whose theses have been accepted.
Enrollment in the seminar is limited to motivated and qualified students who must receive the permission of the Seminar Director(s) in order to enroll in the Thesis Seminar. History majors normally apply for membership early in the spring of their junior year. It is thus important that interested students begin to plan for the Thesis Seminar early. Such students are strongly encouraged to gain experience in research and writing, as well as general background for their topics, before their senior year. Students can gain such experience and knowledge from enrolling in a relevant 100-level seminar(s) before their senior year.
Those accepted into the Thesis Seminar ordinarily take both the Seminar and an appropriate 195S/196S, 200-level course, or Independent Study with their thesis advisors. Students not accepted into the seminar may pursue their thesis through independent study with a thesis director.