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Senior Year Experience (SYE)

Euler DVD artwork
Euler documentary DVD produced by math major Jon Sauer, class of 2008, as part of his SYE

SYE in Mathematics, Computer Science or Statistics

In the semester before you want to do your SYE,

  • Talk to faculty members in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics about possible project/thesis ideas and topics.
  • Look at abstracts and descriptions of past Honors Theses done in our department.
  • Do some preliminary investigations of areas of interest.
  • Pick a Project/Thesis Advisor (one of the department faculty) and topic.

When registering for courses, register for Math 489 or CS 489 (for a Senior Project) or Math 498 or CS 498 (for an Honors Thesis). Note: You will need to ask your project/thesis advisor to add your name to his/her "permissions" list in the APR system.

After course registration (before Thanksgiving Break in the Fall, or Finals Week in the Spring),

  • Turn in an SYE Proposal Form to the department chair.
  • Your SYE Project/Thesis committee should consist of your sponsoring project/thesis advisor and two additional committee members (at least one of whom is from our department).

During the semester of your SYE (or last semester of a full year SYE):

  • Meet regularly with your project/thesis advisor.
  • Put in work, work, and more work on your topic.
  • Prepare a rough draft of your final report by the tenth week of the semester.
  • Prepare a public presentation of your work. (Optional- but strongly encouraged) For example, in the spring semester we have the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (HRUMC) and the Festival of Science.
  • Prepare a final "draft" of your report for your committee members (at least one week before the final oral presentation).
  • Schedule and give an oral presentation of your work (about 10 minutes for senior projects, 20 minutes for honors projects) by the end of the final exam period.
  • Turn in a final written version of the project (hard copy and electronic), with approval signatures from all committee members on the paper copy. The final version must include cover/title page, abstract, table of contents and bibliography. Honors projects will be bound by the library with hard covers.