Senior Project

In 2003, the Department of Physics and Astronomy had a rather significant curriculum revision. The biggest change was the introduction of Physics 191, Senior Project, into our list of courses and its addition to the graduation requirements for our degrees in Physics.

What is the Senior Project?

Physics 191, Senior Project, is the capstone course for physics majors. The goal of this course is to provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate the scientific skills that they have learned in the process of obtaining their degree. It is also intended to enrich the educational experience of the students by offering them the possibility of a genuine research experience. Students who are successful in this course will have proven their ability to a) identify a problem that they have the ability to solve, b) utilize their skills developed in prior course work to solve a problem, c) analyze the results of a problem, and d) report the results of a problem to their peer group via written and oral reports.

What specifically is required?

Students are expected to spend a minimum of 75 hours (for two units) working on the project for a passing grade in this course. Acceptable uses of time are: preliminary/background research, planning, development, construction, implementation, programming, analysis, and report preparation. All students will give a presentation (nominally 20 minutes followed by a 5 minute Q/A period) of their work to the department near the end of the semester in which they complete their project. A final written report is due at the end of finals week of the same semester. Your grade is determined by a committee of your research advisor, the Senior Project Coordinator, and one more faculty member based on the work itself and the reports.

Who does this apply to?

This requirement applies to students with 2004-06 or later catalog rights. Essentially this means, that if you started at Sac State, another CSU, or a California Community College in Fall 2004 or later, this requirement applies to you. If you started prior to 2004 and would like to change to the newer catalog rights, you can - but you should talk to an advisor to make sure it doesn't cause other problems due to other catalog changes. More information on catalog rights are contained in the Sac State Advising Handbook.

How do I go about deciding on a project?

The nature of this course provides a broad range of opportunities of projects for students. Students may perform an experimental research, theoretical research, or computation research with our faculty. Students interested in physics education may select a project to construct a demonstration apparatus or develop and test a new laboratory experiment. For more information on what our faculty members' research interests, visit the research page.

Can I use off campus research, like a summer program, to count towards it?

Yes. You can use summer research (like an REU Program) to count towards Senior Project.

Graduates used to have to give a talk to the department at part of Senior Seminar. Do I have to give two talks now?

Only if you want to. The guidelines no longer require Physics 190, Physics Seminar, for degrees in physics. However, there is a graduation requirement for the department that says that you must have fulfilled a minimum attendance of Department Colloquia (i.e. seminars). This rule is in place to get you to come to seminars so that you are exposed to a broad area of current research topics in physics. This rule generally requires attendance at 20 seminars over the course of your career at Sac State. There is a sign in book at the seminars where your attendance is logged, make sure you sign up so that you get your credit.

I have a project in mind, but I think it will take longer than one semester. What are my options?

There are a couple of options. You can repeat Physics 191 twice for credit. If you decide to do this, no grade will be given the first semster, but will retroactively assigned upom completion of the project. If your project is a long term one, you may be able to also sign up for Physics 199 (Special Projects) for extra credits if your advisor and department chair agree that it is appropriate.