Academic Connection
Various academic programs and majors offer senior year experiences for their undergraduates.
Often seen as "capstone" experiences, these activities "round out the student's academic career".
Below are links to various University of Connecticut senior year experiences.
This page will display links to exceptional senior work and will highlight various academic connections for seniors. Programs who would like Senior Year Experience staff to link to their academic programs for seniors should contact us at: sye@uconn.edu.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Many of our students enroll in Independent Study (EEB 299) which allows them to perform independent research on a topic of interest to them. Students who are interested in independent research should first take Biol 295 (1 credit) in the Fall and Spring of their sophomore year. Biol 295 is designed to introduce students to a wide diversity of researchers to aid them in their selection of a lab in which to conduct their undergraduate research. Students then conduct independent research in their Junior and Senior years. Some students may then elect to formally write up their work in the form of a Senior Thesis (EEB 292W).
Juniors conducting research are encouraged to give a poster presentation at Frontiers (sponsored by the Undergraduate Research Office) and seniors conducting independent research are encouraged to give an oral presentation of their work at the Biology Undergraduate Research Colloquium held each May. Participation in the Biology Colloquium is required to be eligible for Department Awards.
Other opportunities exist for our advanced undergraduates such as taking graduate courses, attending the Departmental Seminars, completing an internship or performing field research abroad.
Engineering
Academic Connections for seniors highlight various "capstone" experiences that allow seniors to show off their talents. For example, Mechanical Engineering students in the School of Engineering develop a Senior Design Project as a culminating experience to display what they have learned as promising Engineers.
Physiology and Neurobiology (PNB)
In the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology undergraduate students become actively involved in conducting research by taking PNB 299 Independent Study, generally beginning in their junior year. As seniors the students continue their research projects and write a Senior Research Thesis (PNB 292W). Students have the opportunity in the Biology Honors Colloquium to give an oral presentation of their research to the faculty in the biological sciences departments.
For more information about the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, click here.
Political Science
Services and Programs Provided to Seniors by the Political Science Department.
Internship Advising and Coordination
The Department offers internships for qualified juniors and seniors in established offices of municipal, state, and federal governments. We participate in a number of structured internship programs. These include the Congressional internships, which place students in the Connecticut Congressional delegations to the House and Senate in Washington; the Washington Center internships, which are non-congressional and place students in various federal agencies in Washington, DC; and the State Capital internships, which place students in Connecticut's General Assembly, Governor's Office, and Judicial Branch. The department has an Internship Coordinator who is available to answer questions, assist in processing applications, and grade internship papers when they are required.
Honors Student Sequences
For seniors who are in the Honors Program, the Department offers a Senior Honors course sequence to oversee thesis preparation and writing. Honors students are required to take a Senior Seminar, POLS289, in the Fall semester of their senior year and two semesters of Senior Thesis, POLS288W, during their senior year. A faculty member serves as the Department Honors Coordinator and oversees this sequence.
Pre-Law Advising Services
The Department's Pre-Law Advising Office provides information about applying for admission to law school, including application expectations, requirements for reference letters, and taking the LSATs. The Pre-Law advisor provides prospective applicants with information to help them select law schools, and also answers general questions about the legal profession, the bar admission process, and employment opportunities in the legal profession.
Pi Sigma Alpha
The Department coordinates the UConn chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national honorary society for political science majors based in Washington, DC. Membership signifies academic achievement within the field and is open to all qualifying juniors and seniors. Membership dues cover a certificate, an informal luncheon with the political science faculty (hosted by the chapter) during the Fall semester, and an induction dinner during the Spring semester. Other activities depend on the enthusiasm and interest of the chapter's members.
Awards Ceremony
Numerous awards are given annually to graduating seniors in recognition of outstanding academic achievements and based on a combination of specific interests within the major and intended career goals. These awards are announced and given at an Awards Ceremony in honor of the recipients and sponsored by the Department at the end of the Spring semester.
Graduation Reception
Each May the Department hosts an annual reception for graduating seniors and their families on graduation day. Refreshments are provided, and a small ceremony is held to recognize the accomplishments of all of the Department's graduating seniors and to acknowledge the support of their families.
More info on many of these services can be found at the department's website:http://www.polisci.uconn.edu
Psychology
In Psychology, students become engaged in our discipline by doing research. Research experience begins early on in PSYC 132 (General Psychology I.), where students conduct experiments and serve as participants in actual research projects conducted by faculty and graduate students. In PSYC 135 (General Psychology II.--Enhanced), students discuss research in relation to broader psychological concepts in small discussion groups. We then ask our majors to take PSYC 202Q (Principles of Research in Psychology), where they not only learn about good experimental design and data analysis techniques, but also put this knowledge to practice by designing their own experiments, collecting and analyzing the data, and preparing research poster presentations for a research event that we conduct each semester called "An Evening of Psychological Science: The Next Generation," which is attended by our faculty, graduate students, and many UConn administrators and dignitaries, and which is patterned after an actual poster session at a scientific conference.
Students are then prepared for encountering, evaluating, and interrelating research findings in relation to topical areas covered in our upper-division content courses, which paves the way for the actual Senior Year Experience of engagement in discovering new knowledge in psychological science. Specifically, we encourage our seniors to enroll in PSYC 297 (Undergraduate Research), in which they assist faculty and graduate students with conducting ongoing psychological research in our laboratories and other research settings. Having been fully incorporated into actual research, we then encourage them to enroll in PSYC 299 (Independent Study), in which they propose, design, execute, analyze, and write up their own psychological research project under the supervision of a faculty member. (Psychology Honors Students will then go one step further by enrolling in PSYC 296W, Senior Thesis in Psychology, where they conduct their Honors Thesis in psychological research.) This progression from early involvement in psychological research, to learning about experimental design and analysis, to conducting simple experiments, and then gaining an understanding of how research relates to content areas, provides a solid foundation upon which our seniors can then participate fully in the research process and thereby forward new knowledge in psychological science while, at the same time, become fully immersed and engaged in our discipline.
Undergraduate Research
Physics
Undergraduate research participation in the Physics department include independent study, 299. Courses include "Chopping Techniques For X-rays", others notated "Honors credit", still others just independent study. Of the 15 students who have graduated in the last two years 10 have taken independent study, andall but two of these are named or honors, presumably implying research, rather than just a reading course. This is the principle senior year experience offered by the Physics Department.
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