Senior Honors Research

3 units

This course is designed to support fourth-year students who are pursuing senior thesis research with the Environmental Studies Program. This 3-credit course includes a weekly 80-minute class session during which the instructor and students co-create a supportive cohort-based learning environment in which students share ideas, drafts of their scholarly work, feedback, and mutual encouragement as they engage in their independent research processes. The instructor guides students through common elements of the research process that span disciplines, such as effective communication with mentors and committee members, goal setting, planning and task management, accessing and reviewing the appropriate literature, concept mapping to organize ideas, outlining proposed methodology and hypothesized figures, and using reference management software. In a series of scaffolded assignments that match thesis timelines, students develop a short thesis proposal, write and twice revise the introduction and/or literature review for their thesis, and create an action plan for their winter/spring path to completion. Some class periods are used as workshops for feedback, idea sharing, and peer review. This course is required for all students working on senior thesis research, which can serve to partially satisfy the requirements for Latin Honors if the student also meets minimum GPA requirements (>3.6). Students graduating in spring should take this course in fall and ENST 4999 in spring of their senior year; students graduating in December should take ENST 4999 in spring of third year and this course in the fall of their third year or fall before graduation. Registration for this course requires completion of the senior thesis intent form and departmental/instructor permission to enroll. Please visit https://enst.wustl.edu/student-research to learn more about the process and find the senior thesis intent form.