UMass Amherst

The Capstone Experience

The Commonwealth College Capstone Experience can be the most rewarding experience of your undergraduate career at UMass. It is a chance to engage in rigorous scholarship and to explore your interest in depths unavailable to most undergraduates. It is also a chance to demonstrate your knowledge to others.

The Capstone Experience is not solely reserved for students looking ahead to graduate study. It is designed to provide all Commonwealth College students with the opportunity to integrate their undergraduate experiences and prepare for their careers—professional or academic—and lives as informed citizens. Building on the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired, students pursue research questions, create art, engage the wider community in action efforts, or work intensively on one of a variety of other academic projects.

The Capstone Experience carries six or more credits, and the expectations are high. Whether the intended end result is a thesis or project, all Capstone Experiences begin with creative inquiry and systematic research, include documentation of substantive scholarly endeavor, and culminate in an oral defense or other form of public presentation.

You may choose to pursue your Capstone Experience as a self-initiated “Independent Capstone” under the supervision of a faculty guidance committee. Or you may take a faculty-initiated “Course Capstone” and complete your thesis or project in a community of classmates. Whichever avenue you take, we are sure you will find reward in the rigor of advanced scholarship.

capstone photo by Walter S. Arnold from stonecarver.com


     cap' stone'  n.
    - The top stone of a structure,
       wall, or column.
    - The crowning achievement or
       final stroke; the culmination.