Senior Experience

A Fourth-Year Experience Committee of students and staff has been exploring ways to enrich the senior year, academically and otherwise. Initiatives from this effort include a capstone course and individual projects.

RISING SENIOR RETREAT
The third-year students go on a retreat in late spring (this past year to Jordan Lake) to engage in individual and collective planning for their senior year. Several staff members facilitate writing and sharing exercises so that students may think about what they want to accomplish in their senior year, most notably through a Senior Project of some kind. The students receive guidance and inspiration from current seniors who've engaged in Senior Projects of their own. In addition, the students consider what they want to do as a class in the senior year so that they leave a positive legacy when they leave CFS. At a retreat at the beginning of the students' senior year, they refine their ideas from the spring retreat and plan the Upper School retreat later in the fall.

SENIOR PROJECTS
All 4 th -year students are encouraged to complete a Senior Project of their own design in order to challenge themselves in new ways and to extend their learning outside familiar contexts. Senior projects can take many forms:

• internships/apprenticeships
• (co) teaching a class or a unit in a class
• independent study and/or thesis
• college course work
• independent service projects

All 3 rd -year students participate in a retreat in the spring to help them generate ideas for a project. In making a proposal for a project, students are asked to consider: 1) what are their goals and aspirations for the project, 2) who might serve as an appropriate advisor for the project, 3) how will they know if they've succeeded with the project, and 4) how will they share their work with the Upper School community.

SENIOR SEMINAR
This interdisciplinary Humanities course and capstone experience has space for 10-12 seniors in the fall and winter terms. Two staff members coordinate the seminar with additional presentations by other CFS staff and outside community members. Course content involves elements of English, social studies, math, science, philosophy, and other academic areas, all around the theme of Revolution for 2003-2004. Students must apply for admission into this demanding course and complete summer reading. Hopefully they will choose to do a related independent project of some kind, either concurrently with the course or in the spring term.