HON4499 - Senior Capstone Project
Course Description
- If you joined KSU's Undergraduate Honors Program after April of 1999, you are required to complete the Honors Senior Capstone project the semester BEFORE you graduate. If you joined the program before April of 1999, you may do your Honors capstone your last semester, but please be advised that you will not have any margin for error should complications arise with the project or major revisions be required in the capstone product or the Honors Portfolio.
- If you are preparing to do the final capstone project, you MUST enroll in Honors 4499, "The Honors Senior Capstone Experience." This is a three-semester-hour course designed to give credit for the successful completion of the capstone product AND the Honors Portfolio. Your supervising instructor, Honors mentor, and the members of the Honors Council will collaborate in evaluating the capstone project and portfolio.
- The semester before you enroll in Honors 4499, you must submit a DETAILED Honors capstone proposal to your Honors mentor and (if different) your supervising instructor, both of whom may suggest revisions. The proposal form can be found at the Honors website, which can be accessed from the KSU home page or the home page for the Department of University Studies. When your mentor and supervising instructor have approved the proposal and affixed their signatures, you should submit the proposal form to the Honors Director. The Honors Council will give the proposal its final review and must approve it before you proceed.
- If the product of your capstone experience is a paper describing original research or an original synthesis of research in your field, please open the paper with a literature review that firmly establishes the relationship of your work to existing research. In addition, please follow the standard format for formal papers in your field, as dictated, for example, by the APA or MLA style manuals.
- The Honors Portfolio should be submitted in a three-ring binder, and should provide comprehensive documentation of the six Honors requirements you have completed to be considered for Honors Scholar status. Here are several tips for its construction:
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- Please make sure you have divided the portfolio into six sections, clearly labeled (Honors Colloquium I, Honors Colloquium II, Honors Experience I, etc.), and please put a table of contents at the beginning of the portfolio. IF AN HONORS EXPERIENCE WAS COMPLETED UNDER THE TERMS OF AN HONORS CONTRACT, A COPY OF THE CONTRACT SHOULD BE THE FIRST ITEM IN THE SECTION DEVOTED TO THAT EXPERIENCE. If you do not have copies of your Honors contracts, check with the Honors Director; they are probably in your file in the Honors Office.
- For Honors Experiences you completed under the aegis of a course (Honors or non-Honors), append a course syllabus to your Honors contract. If you completed an Honors Experience outside the boundaries of a course, make sure the Honors contract is specific about what you did, when and where you did it, and how it was evaluated. If any of this information is missing, please write a paragraph or two providing more specific information.
- The most important item(s) in each section of your Honors Portfolio should be the PRODUCT of the requirement-i.e., what you produced as Honors work for the supervising instructor's review and evaluation. This might be an essay, a research paper, a journal, the printed text of a PowerPoint presentation, or a combination of these products. Depending on your major, it might also be a photograph of a poster presentation or a juried art exhibit, or program from a theatre production. Whatever the nature and context of the Honors Experience, if you think your readers (the members of the Honors Council) will have any difficulty understanding what the product is and why it is Honors-worthy, please write a paragraph of explanation and include it with the submission. The key for the portfolio, especially since your readers will have limited time to evaluate it, is providing clear evidence of what you learned and what you produced with each Honors experience
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- Finally, make the portfolio look as neat and professional as you can; produce something you would be willing to show a potential employer if you were interviewing for a job.
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Kennesaw State University Honors Program - Capstone Project Home Page
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