Comprehensive Requirement

Students are required to write a thesis paper in their senior year that is normally original empirical work conducted with faculty supervision and often in collaboration with other students.

This is normally done as part of a Research Practicum Course in Psychology, or as an Honors Thesis (if in honors). However, limited individual thesis supervision is also available both in the Department of Psychology and in the Department of Biology at the discretion of the prospective faculty advisor.

• PSYC 180 Honors Thesis (2 credits)
• BIOL 180 Honors Thesis

Thesis options. Each Neuroscience major must write their own Thesis, from one of the following options:

1. Students in Biology seminars and Psychology Research Practica often work on group projects and sometimes produce multi-authored research papers. Such a project may serve as the basis of a Neuroscience Research Thesis, but a research paper submitted as the neuroscience thesis must be a unique product of the student who submits it and should be undertaken under the guidance of the faculty member who taught the seminar or research practicum.
2. The thesis may be based on an individual research project directly supported by a faculty member as a Group C elective in either Biology or Psychology.
3. Occasionally, the thesis may be based on a separate research project, such as might occur during a summer (either at Swarthmore or at another institution).  In this case, a student
   1. must secure the preliminary consent of a faculty mentor in either Biology or Psychology (whichever is more appropriate for the project) before beginning work on the project (i.e., before the summer research experience).
   2. provide a one-page summary of the research project to both the faculty mentor and their academic advisor at the beginning of the fall semester of the senior year (no later than Friday of the first week of classes).
   3. If the faculty mentor approves the project for a Neuroscience Thesis, and consents to mentor the student through the process of writing the thesis, then the student will register for a 0.5 credit unit of Neuroscience Thesis during either (but not both) semester of the senior year.

Thus the Neuroscience thesis can take many different forms that depend on the advisor's research style and interests, as well as the student's. For example, quantitative modeling of biological or cognitive processes underlying behavior is part of neuroscience, as well as direct measurement or manipulation of genetic, biological or physiological processes. Purely behavioral measures of explicit responses may be considered neuroscience methods when the structure of processing is under investigation in a way that helps to constrain theories concerning mechanisms underlying neurally controlled behaviors. In short, Neuroscience students may do many different kinds of theses, using many different kinds of scientific methods, as developed in concert with their advisor.

Neuroscience Research Thesis: Guidelines for content and organization.

• The thesis should be organized in the format of a formal scientific paper, including the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, and references.
• The thesis should report new empirical data on a research project that was conducted by the student.
• As the comprehensive exercise for an interdisciplinary major, students should endeavor to explain their scientific question(s) and how their work is related to larger questions or themes in neuroscience in the thesis introduction and/or discussion.  
• The length of the thesis is normally to be no more than 20 pages, double-spaced (exclusive of figures, tables, and references).
• The deadline for submitting the complete draft of the thesis will be set by the faculty research mentor; normally this would be within a week of the last day of spring semester classes.

Note that a Neuroscience Thesis may take other forms, as negotiated with the Thesis mentor and based on limitations/ability to conduct new studies; for example, a grant proposal or re-analysis of existing dataset(s) may be deemed appropriate for the completion of a Neuroscience thesis.

Neuroscience Research Thesis: Evaluation.

• 0.5-credit or 1-credit course thesis will be evaluated by the student's Swarthmore faculty thesis mentor
• 2-credit course thesis will be evaluated by two faculty members, normally one from Biology and one from Psychology.  One of these will normally be the faculty thesis mentor, and the second will be determined by the student in consultation with the thesis mentor.  

back to top

3. Sample Neuroscience Course Majors

The Neuroscience Major is demanding, but can be very flexible. It is important to receive advising from a faculty member in planning your program. Here we show several very different versions of what the major might look like within the rules above. These are intended to be illustrative, rather than representative, and they should not take the place of advising.  

SAMPLE ENTRY REQUIREMENTS (including 2 credits toward major)

AP in BIOL 001 plus BIOL 002 (1 credit counted toward major credits)
AP in PSYC (no credit) plus PSYC 025 (1 credit counted toward major credits)
AP in Calculus, STAT 011, CHEM 010, CHEM 022  

SAMPLE PLANS FOR COMPLETING COURSE MAJOR REQUIREMENTS

back to top

Honors Neuroscience Major Requirements

Entry requirements for admission to the Neuroscience Honors major are the same as those for admission to the Course major (see section A above).   

The Neuroscience Honors major comprises two (2) Entry Requirement courses, at least one (1) of the two Foundation Courses, three (3) Honors Seminar preparations, and an Honors Research Thesis.

Students will be officially added to Honors on the Major/Minor Portal ONLY by the Academic Assistant to the Neuroscience Major once ALL of the following requirements have been met: 

• A copy of the honors form, signed by the Neuroscience Major Administrator, has been received by the Academic Assistant to the Neuroscience Major.
• The Neuroscience Major Administrator has approved the student’s application to Honors via email to the Academic Assistant.
• The mentor of the student’s Honors Thesis has emailed their request to enroll the student in BIOL/PSYC 180 (i.e., Neuroscience Honors Thesis).

1.  Neuroscience Foundation Courses:  Majors will complete at least one of:

BIOL 022            Neurobiology
PSYC 030           Behavioral Neuroscience

2.  Honors Seminar Preparations

Majors will complete three (3) seminar preparations from the following groups, with at least two from Group A (normally one from BIOL and one from PSYC) and no more than two in one department. 

* Neuroscience Honors Majors that have conducted their honors thesis research in conjunction with a member of the Biology Department at Swarthmore (or another institution but sponsored by a faculty member in Swarthmore's Biology Department) must enroll in one credit of BIOL 199 (Senior Honors Study) during their senior spring semester. This course is taken by honors candidates that are Biology, Biochemistry, and Neuroscience majors with theses that are biology focused. Students will participate in weekly meetings focused on presenting their thesis research orally and providing peer-feedbackNote that each seminar preparation must include a different core course; together, the core course and the seminar constitute 1 2-credit Honors Preparation. For example: 

• If a Neuroscience Honors Major decided to take both PSYC 131 and PSYC 131A, they must also take both PSYC 031 and PSYC 031A.
• If a Neuroscience Honors Major decided to take both BIOL 122 and BIOL 129, they must also take both BIOL 021 and BIOL 029 (or equivalent core courses).

Potential Honors Majors are strongly encouraged to speak with their Advisor early in the process to verify that these requirements are met. 

3. Honors Research Thesis (2 credits)

The Neuroscience Honors Thesis is a complete scientific paper based on a substantial research project that, according to the practices of the host department, may be completed in two semesters of research OR in one or two summers plus one semester of research. The project will be taken for one or two credits and will be graded by an External Examiner. Normally, Neuroscience Honors students that complete their theses with a Psychology mentor enroll for 2 1-credit semesters of PSYC 180; Neuroscience Honors students that complete their theses with a Biology mentor enroll for (a) 1 or 2 1-credit semesters of BIOL 180, and (b) 1 1-credit semester of BIOL 199 (in their senior spring semester).

The Honors thesis normally has a page limit of 20 pages, not counting references, figures, figure legends or tables.

An Honors thesis requires a significant investment of thought and time. This begins with careful advance planning. A Neuroscience Honors major will normally identify a faculty member in either Psychology or Biology who consents to be their thesis mentor no later than the end of the junior fall semester. Each Honors student will develop a thesis plan in collaboration with their thesis mentor by the end of their junior spring semester.

back to top