The purpose of the self-designed Senior Capstone is to provide students with the opportunity to design a specialized Senior Capstone beyond those that are currently offered. All Capstones presume a significant scholarly background of specialized study in a major as well as in liberal education course work. In other words, a Capstone does more than culminate years of baccalaureate study: it culminates a student's liberal education.
Current Senior Capstone Courses
Providing this opportunity, the university invites students, in direct collaboration with a faculty advisor, to create a course of study reflective of requirements and goals represented by the Miami Plan and relevant to students' specific academic, professional, social, and political concerns. Capstones may be completed in or outside students' majors; in some departments, the Capstone Experience may be a requirement of the major. You must complete it in the senior year for it to count (minimum of 93 hours earned). It can be used in the Experiential Learning requirement.
You must submit your petition for a Self-Designed Senior Capstone before the experience begins.
For students in combined degree (BAMA) programs, it is acceptable for some amount of the preliminary work or foundation for their graduate thesis or graduate culminating research experience to occur through their senior capstone project. That said, it is critical that their final graduate project build upon and extend this work in substantial ways. For example, a student completing a thesis requires 6 credit hours of thesis credit, and thus the work commensurate with 6 credit hours (see instructional minute requirements) must occur separately from the work engaged in for the capstone experience. This might involve a student beginning to review the literature on their topic as part of their capstone experience, but the formal proposal, data collection/analysis (when applicable), and defense building upon that foundation in subsequent terms. A student cannot complete their entire graduate thesis or graduate culminating research experience in fulfilling the capstone requirement.
Students in the Honors College, or those completing Departmental Honors, are permitted to utilize a Miami Plan Senior Capstone course as the basis of their Honors Senior Project requirement (i.e. x480 Honors Thesis independent study hours). However, they completely “double dip” the hours, and a Self-Designed Senior Capstone must meet Miami Plan outcomes.
For example, students can extend their capstone coursework into a project that lasts approximately two semesters and produces a substantially larger product than the standard capstone course requirements to fulfill their Honors Senior Project requirement. Students may enroll in an independent study course to work on their Honors Senior Project in the term before or after they complete their capstone course. Completing the coursework and/or assigned project in the capstone course alone does not fulfill the Honors Senior Project requirement.
You must address the following components to be uploaded as part of any self-designed Capstone proposal:
All components of the self-designed Senior Capstone must be completed before it will be reviewed by the Director and Associate Director of Liberal Education, including the advisor(s) support. Please allow 7-10 business days for the petition to be processed after all materials have been received.
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