CIS Juniors

As a CIS major, your senior thesis or capstone is a significant part of your experience and it is important to stay on track with planning. Consider these key milestones/deliverables during your junior and senior years.

CIS Meetings

You will be expected to attend CIS meetings to review logistics, share your project with others, and build community. You will receive Outlook invites for those meetings.

Adviser Meetings

Ongoing, students schedule with their advisers

As a CIS major, you should meet frequently with your advisor(s). During the junior year, you should use those meetings to design your capstone or thesis research plan. You may also wish to discuss funding plans for research or travel related to your work as many CIS majors will use a portion or all of their summer after junior year to work on the senior projects.

Grant Opportunities

Various due dates

As you search for funding options for your research, please look at the following Davidson College resources:

• Dean Rusk International Studies Program Travel Grants
• Undergraduate Research—including Abernethy, DRI, Davidson Research Network, Kemp, NSF, Research in Science Experiments, Vann Fellowship in Biomedical Ethics, and R. Craig and Sheila Yoder Applied Research

Capstone Planning

You will need to prepare in advance for your capstone. Your advisor will guide you on what and when you need to prepare a plan for your capstone. For example, your advisor might want you to write a brief introduction and method section by the end of spring semester. Some advisors may want you to begin collecting articles and begin conducting research over the summer. Please discuss the best course of action for you to accomplish your capstone goals with your advisor(s). Everyone will be required to submit a syllabus by the end of the second week of the fall semester that includes details about your project topic/plan.

Thesis Proposal and Presentation

If you are planning to conduct a thesis, you will need to prepare a written thesis proposal and present it at a colloquium (12 to 15-minute presentation with 45 minutes of question time) with your main advisor and a second advisor/committee member. Your advisor(s) should guide you in writing the proposal and preparing the presentation. You are encouraged to invite other CIS students and relevant faculty members to attend your colloquium to provide additional feedback. Your advisor will guide the best time to present your colloquium. Some advisors may want you to complete this part in the spring, others will recommend it for the summer, and others will recommend it for the fall. The document and colloquium must be completed by December 1 in the fall semester. Once you have completed your document and passed your colloquium, then you will submit the Thesis Proposal and Colloquium form at the link: Thesis Proposal and Colloquium form

Course Changes

Please only request course changes in situations that are outside of your control (e.g., the course that was approved is no longer offered at Davidson). This request would likely only occur for one course at maximum per student in those unique situations. Please do not make requests for convenience as your approved contract has been previously carefully vetted by a committee.  The Course Change Form can be found on Kuali. (Davidson login required)