Junior Thesis Proposals

Juniors thinking about doing a thesis should discuss it with a member of the Math Department during the spring of the junior year. You should find an advisor, and develop with them a brief proposal (one or two pages) explaining what you plan to do.

Each thesis student has an advisor and a second reader. Your advisor need not be from the math department; they could be from another HMC department, or even another Claremont college. However, if your advisor is not from the math department, you should choose a second reader who is affiliated with the department.

Be sure to let the Senior Thesis Coordinator know who your second reader will be.

To give you an idea of what the proposal should consist of, take a look at the thesis proposals submitted by students for previous years.

Applying for Senior Thesis

To actually apply, you must:

  1. Identify an advisor and develop a thesis topic with them.
  2. Fill out the Thesis Proposal Cover Sheet.
  3. Write a one- to two-page proposal explaining what you plan to do using the LaTeX class stprop.cls, available from a shared texmf directory on any math cluster machine, or downloadable from the LaTeX class page. You can use the proposal template, available from the templates section.

Your proposal is due (in both paper and electronic form) to your advisor and to the Senior Thesis Coordinator by the first Thursday after spring break in your junior year.