About Graduation Project

     The Graduation Project (henceforth, GP) is a one-year course. To succeed in this course, you need to exhibit in your GP the quality of your academic experience learned from the Department. Your GP must be of good quality in its research questions, literature review, methodology, and data analysis. In addition, you must show that your GP is significant to some certain fields of your designations.

     The tasks of your GP consist of four major components: Proposal, Process, Product and Presentation. The definition and requirement of each component are as below.

Proposal

     The proposal is the blueprint of your GP. Your proposal must be logic and show that your GP is soundly doable. Your GP proposal needs to be reviewed by your advisor. It is advisable that you prepare a “proposal abstract” to your advisor before you fully commence your GP. Your proposal abstract should be informative. It should be clear enough to let your advisor know what you are about to do for your GP, and may consist of the following elements.

• Motivation/problem statement: Why do we, people other than you, care about the problem or the issue? What practical, scientific, theoretical or artistic gap is your GP filling?
• Methods/procedure/approach: What will you actually do to get your results?
• Results/findings/product: As a result of completing the above procedure, what will you learn/invent/create?
• Conclusion/implications: What will be the larger implications of your findings or your contribution, especially for the problem/gap/issue identified in the abovementioned first step?

     Once your advisor agrees to your proposal abstract, you will start writing your GP proposal. The proposal formats for Senior Paper and Senior Project are different. Please check out the template 【Graduation Paper Template】

You have to work with your advisor throughout the process of your proposal writing—

     Proposal abstract, proposal draft, proposal revisions, and final proposal. You must get your final proposal approved by your advisor and submit two bounded copies to the Department. The Department will then issue you an acknowledgement letter to formally approve your GP proposal.

Process

     Your process of doing GP is assessed closely by your advisor. There are three requirements during the process. One is that you have to participate in four Orientation Workshops to let yourself fully prepare of all the required GP tasks. Another is that you have to attend six monthly International Affairs Forums to expand your horizon of international affairs. Another is that you are required to have at least six Reflection Meetings with your advisor throughout the length of your Graduation Project. The Orientation Workshops will be held in the first two weeks of your Graduation Project. They are designed to allow you to get the basics of doing your GP tasks. Four 2-hour workshops are provided—Introducing the Graduation Project, Data Collection Resources in Wenzao, Endnote and Style, and Reflection on How to Do a Research.

     The International Affair Forums are discussion panels sponsored by the Department. Faculty members or outside speakers will be invited to present their works related to international affairs.

     The Reflection Meetings are to show your efforts of doing your GP. You may consider, though it is not required, preparing a “reflection paper” before each Reflection Meeting. A “reflection paper” is to illustrate what you have learned through the process. It could have two major parts.

Part One describes—

• Who have you talked to?
• What have you read (observed, studied, meditated on, etc.)?
• What have you done to document your work and learning?
• What’s next?

Part Two describes—

     Synthesizes, reflects upon, and discusses your work and learning. It may consist of the following components:

• If you had last month to do over again, what would you do differently? Why?
• What new ideas were triggered by your work over the last month?
• What did you learn about yourself—your working style, your interests, etc?
• What new questions do you have now?
• What did you learn about your topic/subjects that you didn’t know before? What connections among the various things you have studied and researched do you see?

     Other than reflection papers, you can present other documentation in your Reflection Meeting with your advisor. To show that you have consistently endeavor in your GP, you may want to keep your documentation in:

• A reliable, systematic, labeled, and clear organizational system
• A complete, thoughtful, and up-to-date record of your progress

    Further, you may consider revealing in your documentation that—

• You are using a variety of sources.
• You assess the nature, reliability, and usefulness of your sources.
• You classify, group, and label your information.
• You are documenting your sources and experiences and compiling a properly formatted, annotated bibliography/record of events.

Product

      Your GP product will be the manuscript of your Senior Paper or your Senior Project. Its main text should be around 6,000~8,000 words. 

 Presentation         

       The last stage of your work is to present your GP Product. It allows you describe what you have learned over the course of your GP, explain the process you have used to conduct your GP, illustrate your findings or experience, and highlight the significance of your GP.

     There are two events in this stage—the GP Presentation Sessions and the Annual Graduation Project Conference. Each GP Presentation will last for 40 minutes. A panel administered by junior students of the Department will review your presentation. The members of the panel will be your fellow senior students and your advisor. While student observers are to ask questions after your presentation, it is your advisor who will decide whether your GP Presentation is excellent, acceptable, conditional, or failed.

     Your GP Presentation must be at least “acceptable” to be qualified. A “failed” decision on your GP Presentation means that you are not able to graduate by the end of the school year; you have to re-take your GP in next school year. If you receive a conditional decision, you need to present your GP once again at a date determined by your advisor. If you receive an excellent recommendation, you will further present your GP at the Annual Graduation Project Conference (AGPC). 

     The AGPC is the culmination of the Graduation Project. The junior students of the Department will be responsible for the planning and implementation of the conference. Approximately, six to ten seniors will become eligible to present their GPs before the audience in this conference. The remaining seniors will also exhibit their products with posters in the conference hall. The Department will invite all seniors’ quests to attend the AGPC to share with their pride and joy.

Tips for Students

    As a student of the Department of International Affairs, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, you are required to satisfactorily accomplish a Graduation Project (GP) to qualify for graduation. You will be assigned with an advisor before the start of the GP.

     You can either write a Senior Paper or take a Senior Project to meet the GP requirement. A Senior Paper is an academic thesis in which you demonstrate your ability of exploring new knowledge in fields related to international affairs. A Senior Project is an action plan that you will carry it out to address a practical issue related to international affairs. While formats of these two GPs are different, the academic rigors required to achieve them are the same.

     Your GP will be evaluated once a semester. Each one will be graded in a 100-point scale. A minimum of 60 points for each evaluation is required to pass the GP.