Senior Capstone Information

All minors, concentrators, and majors in women’s & gender studies must complete a senior capstone project during their senior year.

There are three options for senior projects:

1). Completing a three-credit internship (which will be registered as WGST 495)

2). Completing the Senior Capstone Seminar class (WGST 490, 3 credits)

3). Completing an honors thesis (WGST 493).

All senior capstone projects must also be presented at Great Day (or a presentation to the WGST faculty/students if in the fall term) as part of the capstone completion requirement. 

Internships should be at organizations and on topics related to women’s and gender studies broadly speaking. Registering for WGST 495 requires creating learning outcomes that relate to women’s & gender studies, and which one can plausibly achieve given the nature of the internship and organization. As an intern, one will need a field supervisor (at the organization for which one is interning) and an academic supervisor (generally automatically the coordinator of WGST). Note that a 3 credit internship requires 120 hours of work over the entire semester. To learn more about how to register for an internship for credit at Geneseo, visit the Career Design Center's internship resources page.

Some More information on Internships: WGST Internships

WGST 490 Senior Capstone aims to offer a seminar-style learning experience on some advanced topic in women's and gender studies, with the main assignment for the course being independent research or creative project.

Honors thesis are only available to majors, and the intention is for a thesis to be a full year-long project. To take up an honors thesis, one must submit a thesis proposal to the Women’s & Gender Studies Advisory Committee for approval prior to beginning the thesis work.

In exceptional circumstances, students may obtain a waiver to complete a directed study as a capstone fulfilling experience. However, generally speaking, projects that would be taken up as directed studies should be taken up as the independent project in WGST 490 if one intends for that project to be one’s senior capstone. 

The GREAT Day (or other) presentation will involve a presentation of about 15-20 minutes with 5-10 minutes for questions.

In the presentation you should:

A) Describe the project

B) Introduce relevant research/academic sources

C) Tie your project to coursework and experiences in WGST

D) (if applicable) Point to ways in which your experience with your project might relate to future education, career, activism, or personal plans

More information about the options available for Senior Capstone: WGST Capstone Options