Mentoring an INDS student in collaboration with a professor from another department entails three main opportunities to give the student feedback on his or her individualized plan:
1. When the student is preparing to submit a degree plan to our faculty committee, INDS staff and faculty mentors review the student’s proposal primarily to determine if the selected courses prepare the student for the capstone project as well as graduate school or their desired career. This is our “cohesiveness” requirement, and we gather once for a “triangle” meeting to offer the student feedback for a final draft.
2. In the student’s senior fall, (s)he takes a senior research seminar to prepare an annotated bibliography, refine research questions and methodology, etc. There is a midpoint meeting with both faculty mentors where you provide feedback on the feasibility of the refined capstone plan.
3. In the student’s senior spring, the student submits capstone drafts (in sections, including an outline, introduction, review of the literature, etc.) to faculty mentors for feedback, and faculty mentors grade the final project. Although capstone projects are often a thirty-five-page research paper, students have done a variety of projects (known as a Type II capstone project) including short documentary films, art exhibits, business plans, etc.
The capstone, although technically an independent study, gives INDS 490 course credit to both faculty mentors.