Overview of Options:

either

• a year-long capstone project supervised by a member of Faculty.

or

• capstone by coursework: two advanced research courses, each incorporating a substantial research paper.

Both options satisfy the capstone requirement for an Honours degree at Yale-NUS.

Both options are eligible for the PPE capstone prize.

The year-long capstone project offers students in the PPE major the ability to apply the interdisciplinary set of skills they have acquired to a more focused set of issues or problems in order to produce a substantial piece of research. Students taking this option will enroll in the PPE Capstone Seminar in Year 4, Semester 1. The capstone by coursework option is designed for students interested in deepening their knowledge of particular subject domains that are already covered through existing courses available at Yale-NUS. Proposals for alternative types of capstone projects, such as policy papers in conjunction with an internship project, will be considered and may be undertaken with the approval of the Head of Studies.

Option 1: Year-long Capstone Project

Students may choose any topic that incorporates their primary field of specialisation. Students may also choose a topic at the intersection of their primary field of specialisation and a secondary field (e.g., philosophy and politics, philosophy and economics, or politics and economics). The chosen research question should be feasible; one which a) can be answered in the available research period, b) has data or research materials that are accessible, and c) uses a methodology the student can be reasonably expected to master at the undergraduate level within the available time frame. Students must submit a prospectus for their proposed capstone project at the end of their third year. Topics will be judged feasible at the discretion of the Head of Studies or the student’s intended supervisor.

The final product should, for a philosophy or economics project, follow those majors’ capstone guidelines. For a politics capstone, the final product should be a research paper of approximately 8,000-10,000 words. The paper should include an abstract and bibliography, discussion of relevant literature, and a clear statement of the question addressed, the position taken, and the arguments supporting it. 15% of the final grade will come from progress in the Capstone Seminar in semester 1, while the remaining 85% of the grade will come from the evaluation of the capstone thesis itself.

Option 2: Capstone by Coursework The capstone by coursework option will involve two 5Unit semester-long advanced research courses, both normally taken in the senior year. No more than one such course may be taken in any given semester in order to avoid overload and permit the focused research expected for a capstone course. By default, all 4000-level courses offered in the PPE and Philosophy majors, as well as all advanced-designated courses in Economics, will count towards the PPE capstone by coursework. Under certain circumstances, and with permission, a 5Unit 3000-level course in PPE, a course taken on a semester abroad program during the senior year, or a course offered at NUS, may fulfill the requirement so long as it involves substantial research and writing.

The understanding of what constitutes substantial research and writing within each advanced research course will differ somewhat by discipline and subdiscipline within PPE. For the PPE-Politics track, the expectation will usually be a research paper in the range of 4000-5000 words. In the PPE-Economic and PPE-Philosophy, the expectation will be appropriate to the relevant discipline.

For both capstone options, students will be expected to make a public presentation of their research in some format, whether within a class setting to fellow students and the instructor, or in a wider public setting.