Notes about capstones:

• Senior capstones must be taken senior year.
• Senior seminars cannot be substituted with other courses offered through IAPA or through other concentrations.
• Senior and junior seminars are not interchangeable; they have different purposes.
• Students are strongly encouraged to take senior seminars for a grade, as they represent the culmination of a student's work in IAPA.

Options for fulfilling the requirement:

1. Enrolling in a pre-approved IAPA Senior Seminar and writing a 20-25 page research paper or its equivalent, or
2. By application and acceptance into the IAPA Honors Program and writing a senior thesis.
    

Option 1: Senior Seminar

This option entails taking, during the senior year, a pre-approved IAPA Senior Seminar.  Approved Senior Seminars require students, in their senior year, to write a research paper that draws on analytic expertise, thematic expertise, regional expertise, and foreign language skills, if applicable.  The research paper is typically about 20-25 pages in length. 

Option 2: Senior Thesis

Students interested in writing a senior thesis apply to the IAPA Honors Program in the spring semester of junior year. To receive honors, students must:

1. Complete the 2-course required series in senior year, IAPA 1816A in the fall and IAPA 1817A in the spring.
2. Submit an honors quality thesis (of 80-120 pages in length) by the deadline, as judged by the student’s thesis committee – the primary thesis advisor and the second reader. Both readers must submit a written evaluation of the thesis. In the event of a lack of consensus, a member of the Faculty Committee will also evaluate the thesis.
3. Complete an oral presentation on the thesis at the annual IAPA thesis conference in the spring of senior year.