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Capstone Project 2024-25 (Junior Sophisters)

Capstone Project 2024-25 General Information

Compulsory SS Year (Capstone) Projects School of English 2024-25
From September 2017, all Senior Sophisters are required to take a 20-credit module of independent research, referred to in the Trinity Education Project’s nomenclature as a capstone project. This constitutes one third of the final year’s work; the remaining 40 credits will consist of Sophister options, as has traditionally been the case in the School.

According to the document presented to Council on 11 May 2016, TEP’s definition of the capstone is a project ‘that provides students with an opportunity to integrate the knowledge, skills and competencies which they have acquired during their undergraduate studies, and to demonstrate these in a form appropriate to the discipline’.

For 2024-25 the School of English is offering three models for this 20-credit capstone to its Senior Sophister students. These models are the dissertation model, such as the School has traditionally provided; a creative writing model; and an open collections model, founded on a project based in College archives or special collections in conjunction with the Library.

The three models, outlined in the guidebook, aim to provide variety of kind, approach and assessment in the final year project.
The chosen capstone model must be clearly distinct from the other 40 credits being undertaken in your Senior Sophister year and from the modules you took in your Junior Sophister year. You must be careful not to repeat material. So while you might propose a capstone in an area where you’ve already done some study in a Sophister option, you must make sure that you’re working in a different way with texts, or working on different texts from ones that you worked with in your options. Additionally, due to limited places in both, you won’t be able to do the Creative Writing option at the same time as you do a Creative Writing capstone. You can apply for both, but being accepted for one will rule you out of the other.