The English senior thesis is the most rewarding challenge I have faced at Brooklyn College. It is an opportunity to stretch your academic horizons in ways that most classes never will. The process of the thesis is rigorous, requiring the reading of dense critical texts and applying them towards a project that you develop yourself. The work is hard, but the journey of self-discovery that the senior thesis has taken me through is something that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I’ve learned what it means to conduct elaborate research, how to draft efficiently, and most importantly I’ve learned that a project like this can be genuinely enjoyable and mind opening if you allow yourself to be open to the experience. – Tim
The senior thesis is required of all students who wish to graduate with honors. Also required is a seminar course (for which English majors, a seminar in literature; for creative writing majors, the seminar may be in creative writing). The senior thesis can be considered as two parts, English 5104, senior thesis one and English 5105, Senior Thesis 2. In Senior Thesis 1 the student explores and researches primary and secondary works around the topic of choice. The student and the advisor work together while the student creates a prospectus. In Senior Thesis 2, the student writes and revises the thesis.
The senior thesis can be a one-term project as English 5103. This is particularly appropriate for the student who is already done some of the exploring and perhaps some writing in an earlier course, so that in one term the student has prepared to expand the earlier paper into a senior thesis.
In either case, the thesis is interpretive and analytic; a developed essay approximately 30+ pages, including citations, works cited, and bibliographic materials.
Creative writing students may elect to do a thesis, which includes a manuscript of poems, stories, a section of a novel, or a hybrid work, with an accompanying essay. This essay is critical and analytic in nature and discusses the influences of a writer or a group of writers on the student’s own creative work.
The Junction Journal 