By Megan Loock
Elm Staff Writer
The Senior Capstone Experience season has started for Washington College seniors. Between deadlines and late-night writing — and crying — sessions, it may seem like too much to handle, but if students follow advice from their professors and peers, there is no need to worry.
According to Associate Professor and Associate Chair of English Dr. Courtney E. Rydel, the SCE is what makes the WC experience similar to that of an honors college.
“It is the one thing that every single person who graduates from WC has done,” she said. “That is the distinctive part of the WC experience.”
Dr. Rydel has advised SCE’s for the nine years she has taught at the College. The one thing that she advises students to do when starting their SCE is to avoid procrastination.
“I really think what matters about the SCE is not necessarily the specific brilliant insights that a student can and does offer at the end, it’s not even the finished product per se. It’s the process of going through and having achieved something so significant at a relatively young age [that] is an accomplishment,” she said.
The English Department uses their W3 course to create a junior seminar that not only requires students to complete exercises that break down processes into smaller parts, but also allows students to get an overview of the English and literary studies as a field.
“The idea is that, instead of you doing all the thinking, the research, and the writing all in one year, some of the thinking work happens a little bit earlier,” Dr. Rydel said.
According to the College’s website, all majors require their students to complete a W3 course that is designed “to build on the knowledge and skills learned in W1 [First-Year Seminar] and W2 and to transition to the culminating W4 Senior Capstone Experience.”
However, each department has their own way of approaching SCE preparation.
Senior Hannah Flayhart is a chemistry major conducting a research-based SCE that is looking at mercury and cadmium in water tributaries along the Chester River. She also added an educational component that assesses the potentiality for high-school-aged students to do similar testing in the future.
Flayhart did most of her SCE planning last semester, since that was when her outline, revised-outline, and annotated bibliography were due.
“I was definitely a little nerve-wracked at the beginning of the process just because it seems like a giant daunting thing,” she said. “There was definitely a lot of stress and a lot of overthinking at the beginning of the process.”
Flayhart said that she “thought I would not necessarily have my hand held but be shooed along, but I’ve mostly been on my own trying to think through how I would get my sampling.”
She also came to realize how independent completing an SCE is which is new to all seniors embarking on this intellectual journey.
For seniors who are struggling to start the writing process, on Feb 1. the Writing Center — co-sponsored by the Student Government Association — will host an SCE Retreat that allows students a few hours to receive feedback from their peers.
Students are encouraged to drop by the Writing Center and “put it all aside and write,” according to the flier.
The SCE Retreat will be held on Feb. 19, and students are required to sign up via the link that will be shared by Feb. 15. There will be tutors, space, and food available to those who participate.
“Often I do think that students contribute more [with] their senior thesis than they ever realize to the ongoing intellectual life of the College,” Dr. Rydel said. “What we learn from you and your ideas and your creativity and your research and your synthesis does change what we do going forward and affects the next generation of college students.”