PLSC 490 (“The Senior Colloquium”) is offered in the fall and is required of all year-long senior essay writers. The Colloquium provides students guidance on all facets of the discipline, from conceptualizing a project and devising a methodology to conducting research and crafting the actual essay.
Throughout the fall semester, the year-long senior essay writers meet with the instructor once a week as a class. In this course, students develop a research prospectus for the senior essay, begin their research, and present their research plans and drafts of preliminary work to the class. They also provide each other with feedback about the proposed and ongoing research. In addition, they review recent prize-winning essays to see how exemplary year-long essays are structured and organized.
Note that some weeks students will meet one-on-one with the instructor of PLSC 490, instead of meeting as a class. These meetings provide an opportunity to discuss the conceptualization of the project, the research undertaken, and/or the writing completed so far.
In addition to working with the instructor of PLSC 490, we strongly encourage that year-long essay writers meet with their faculty adviser frequently throughout the fall semester as well.
At the end of the semester, students submit a 15 page written assignment which is composed of a draft of some portion of the senior essay.