Senior Projects Foster Key Skills
Self-directed learning and effective time management become increasingly essential in one’s college years and beyond. To help students practice these skills, scores of public and private schools around the country enable—or even require—twelfth graders to execute senior projects.
At the Upper School, these projects have been optional, but most seniors have taken advantage of the opportunity over the years to pursue a topic of special interest to them. “The aim is for the student to grow and to learn,” says Blair Lindsey (US’72, C’76), a current coach and former faculty member who oversaw senior projects for several years. “A central idea is that the student owns and has responsibility for what he does—or fails to do.”
Originally known as “May projects,” the process has gone through a few iterations since 1970, when it was introduced. In the late 1990s, faculty and administrators reached consensus on maintaining senior projects, with two provisos: students would work on projects after completing coursework for the year; and they would have weekly coaching sessions to work on conceptualization and planning for several months leading up to the project.
Steven Henn (US’98, C’02), English Department chair, currently coordinates and coaches the seniors through the project process. This year, every senior was involved, says Henn, who values the “authentic learning experience” the projects provide, particularly in “the creation of an idea and then the follow-through and execution of that idea.” (To ensure that everyone reaps these benefits, all seniors will be required to do a project beginning next year.)
The projects are evaluated and graded, and students may choose “sponsors” who provide technical and moral support. Overall, each student is required to put in 100 hours of work on his or her project—roughly three-fourths of which occurs at the end of the year. (Many put in considerably more time, however.) Students must also present their projects to the community.
This year, as in the past, the range of projects reflected the diverse interests of the Upper School student body—from internships with politicians and businessmen to the production of a radio play; from research into the life of Mary Baker Eddy to research into sustainable resource use at the School; and from following in the footsteps of a Medieval-era pilgrim to honing piano performance skills and giving a recital.
Occasionally, these projects even continue after graduation. For example, a recent student who developed a photography portfolio and website for her senior project ended up obtaining an assignment right out of school as a result!