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Photo of a classroom of students Graphic: Otterbein College Academics > Registrar > 2007-2009 Courses > Senior Year Experience (SYE)

Senior Year Experience (SYE)

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New team-taught interdisciplinary courses are being created and developed all the time, so specific SYE course offerings vary from year to year. Courses have included:

  • Community, Leadership and Change in Non-Profit and Social Service Organizations
  • Toward Peace with Justice: Living and Leading in Community (service-learning option)
  • Free Choices? Making Choices in a Free Enterprise Society
  • 1900-Vienna-2000 (with travel to Vienna)
  • Media and the Law
  • Naked, Communist, and Sober: The Search for Utopia
  • The Face of AIDS
  • Inventing the Self and the Future
  • Global Citizenship: Issues and Problems for the 21st Century
  • September 11th and After
  • Africa (with travel to an African country)

The following SYE options are offered regularly:

SYE 475.10 and 475.20 OFF-CAMPUS STUDY - 1 hr each
Students who participate in an approved Off-Campus Study program may enroll in two sequential SYE 475 courses in order to meet the SYE requirement for graduation. Specific requirements and guidelines are available from the Director of International Student Programs, Hanby Hall 121.

475.10 OFF-CAMPUS STUDY� PREPARATION 1 hr
Students will enroll in this section the same quarter they study off campus. Before leaving campus, students will locate a member of the faculty willing to serve as a mentor for their project. Students will prepare and submit a proposal describing a complex contemporary issue they wish to study, along with a working bibliography, to the SYE off-campus committee. Preliminary reading of items on the bibliography and personal interviews with knowledgeable people are part of the preparation for the SYE Off-Campus Study. During and after the off-campus study experience, students will continue the reading, research, and interviews. Students will keep a journal while off campus and compile a research folder to submit to their faculty mentor upon return to campus. The mentor will issue a pass/fail grade before the students can proceed to SYE 475.20. Prereq: Junior or Senior standing. Coreq: study off campus during the junior year, the summer before the senior year, or the first quarter of the senior year.

475.20 OFF-CAMPUS STUDY � PROJECT - 1 hr
Submission of a personal research essay based on the information acquired during SYE 475.10 and a public presentation of the project to the SYE Committee will complete the SYE requirement. The SYE off-campus committee for each student will issue a grade for the project based on the quality of the personal research essay and the public presentation, both of which must be completed before the end of the ninth week of the quarter before the quarter the student intends to graduate. Prereq: A pass grade in 475.10 and senior standing, together with an approved off-campus study program taken during the junior year, the summer before the senior year, or the first quarter of the senior year.

SYE 490 MANAGING TRANSITIONS TO THE FUTURE: THE SYE INTERNSHIP SEMINAR - 2 hrs
This interdisciplinary course, which meets for 90 minutes weekly, is designed to accompany a senior-level, 10- to 15-credit hour internship in the student�s home department. The course focuses on the transitions to life after college, examining strategies for success in both work and life outside the organization. Topics for discussion include: strategies for success in organizations, organizational culture and assimilation, the organization and society, life after work, and integrating the college experience. Required: Corequisite is enrollment in a departmental internship of at least 10 hours credit.

Note: Students whose internships are taken outside the Central Ohio area or who cannot attend the seminar, must take the seminar in the quarter following their internship. These students must contact the instructor(s) of the SYE Internship Seminar and obtain permission to do so prior to the quarter in which the internship is taken. These students will be required to complete a detailed journal, including specific assignments related to the course content, during their internship.

SYE 495 INDIVIDUALIZED SYE 2-5 hrs
This option provides flexibility in meeting the Senior Year Experience requirement for a student who has set a goal which does not fit within the present SYE options of SYE courses, SYE Internship Seminar, SYE Off-Campus Study, the Honors Program, or departmental offerings that include SYE components. A proposal for an individualized SYE, which requires the approval of both the SYE Committee and the Curriculum Committee, must adhere to strict guidelines in accordance with the requirements for other SYE options. Students interested in designing an individualized SYE should pick up the Individualized SYE Guidelines from the SYE program director early in their junior year.

Students in teacher education, athletic training, music performance, theatre, or honors should see their department chairperson or program director for more details about their specific SYE options. In addition, Continuing Studies students may want to enroll in an SYE designed for them. Several courses have sections indicating Continuing Studies enrollment (ex.: SYE courses designated 1C).