The University's bachelor degree requirements strongly recommend that all students round out their undergraduate experience with a senior capstone course or courses in the major which draw together in focus the pieces of the four-year program as a synthesizing experience. The Physics and Astronomy Department's inplementation of the capstone experience for astronomy and astrophysics majors emphasizes the development of the science and where it might lead in the future for the science as well as for the individual. This is expected to be achieved with the thesis project.
The senior thesis will require some laboratory or observational research on the part of the student which will normally take two semesters of enrollment and effort. It is expected that the scope of the project will be such that knowledge and experience gained in previous courses will be drawn upon and brought into focus. The completed thesis will be graded not only on the basis of its content and accomplishment, but also for style and grammar, satisfying the Tier II Writing Requirement as well. In the course of the writing it is expected that there will be several iterations of the submitted material with feedback from the instructor about the content and the writing.