Dickinson vs. Wooster

Corbett
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 20:16:56 +0000

Wooster’s senior capstone experience seems strong(er).

They have the option of doing a senior thesis at Dickinson.

There is no doubt that a senior thesis/capstone can be one of the most important and rewarding parts of the undergraduate experience. However, I personally prefer making it optional (as at Dickinson), rather than mandatory (as at Wooster). The best senior projects tend to have a lot of faculty involvement and interaction, and it’s just harder to do that when every faculty member has to deal with multiple seniors – some of whom are highly motivated and enthusiastic, and some of whom have no real idea of what they want to do but need to do something in order to graduate. I would let the latter group off the hook, thereby giving the faculty more opportunity to work with the former group.

There are relatively few schools that make the senior project mandatory. Others that come to mind, besides Wooster, are Reed and Princeton. I have met graduates of these schools that disagree with me.