Senior Projects

The Senior Project in France offers an immersion program of activities aiming to provide students with a culminating appreciation of French culture, language and history. This seven-day home-stay on the French Riviera followed by a five-day exploration of Paris and its environs promises enrichment opportunities at once exciting and educational.

In Cannes, students participate in an authentic student-to- student exchange with the Lycée Stanislas, one of France’s finest secondary schools. The Cannes International Film Festival winds down during our stay, so students will feel some of the excitement and pizazz that annually gathers movie stars, cinephiles and paparazzi. Day-trips bring us to Nice, the Château de La Napoule, l’Ile Saint-Honorat, and the Fragonard Museum in Grasse; evenings spent largely en famille extend opportunities for immersion in French language and culture.

In Paris, we stay four nights in a 4-star hotel on the right bank, and enjoy meals in selected restaurants that serve traditional French food. Our stay in Paris includes: a dinner-cruise on the river Seine; the iconic sights and monuments of Paris; walking tours of historic gardens and quartiers; museum visits; a market visit in Versailles, followed by picnic and bike-ride in the gardens of the palace.

Please note that all participants in this program must also meet the requirements of a complementary senior project during the two weeks prior to traveling. We require that this portion of the senior project be service-oriented.

Sample Itinerary

We spend the first part of the trip in Cusco, Peru, working in an orphanage, touring ancient Incan sites and exploring this beautiful colonial city in the Andes. We live in a large guest house with our host family near the center. After five days we go to the small town of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley, live with local families and do agricultural service. We experience traditional life in rural Peru. We then hike the Inca Trail and visit Machu Picchu. This trip offers an authentic cultural experience.

The couple that directs the program in Peru is the key to this wonderful experience. Chivi Uscamayta recently finished a term as the Assistant Mayor of Cusco and has dedicated her life to helping those in need. Julio Lopez is one of the foremost travel agents in Peru and an expert on Peruvian history and culture.

This is a challenging trip in many ways. We live and eat simply. We are very physically active and have one 6-7 hour hike. Our two days of farm work are strenuous.

We see a lot of poverty and coming face to face with the reality of orphanage life is not easy. We are constantly in situations in which students are expected to reach across language and cultural barriers.

Sample Itinerary

This Senior Project to Sicily serves as a capstone experience for Thayer students. A unifying theme across the diverse range of activities of the expedition is the cultural complexity of Sicily as we strive to understand and appreciate the conflation of Greek, Roman, North African, Arab, and Norman influence upon the art, architecture, culture, and history of the island.

Upon arrival in Palermo, our driver will pick us up from the airport on a private bus in which we will travel for the duration of our trip. Our first stop is Castellamare del Golfo where we will hike the Riserva Naturale del Zingaro to explore dunes and coves, taking in the stunning coastal views as we fend off the jet lag. The following morning brings us to the mountains southwest of Palermo to hike the ancient site of Segesta—originally an Elymian settlement, later settled by Greeks, colonized anew by the Romans, and the eventual site of a Norman fort. Segesta is the location for the first of several episodes throughout our trip in a mini-seminar on Greek Doric architecture, as well as on Greek history in Sicily. We then proceed to Erice, looming over the plain upon which the funeral games of Anchises, depicted in Book 5 of Virgil’s Aeneid, had been set. The importance of food as a bearer of cultural identity is brought home by the evening’s cooking class with Maria Grammatico, Erice’s renowned maker of traditional Arabic marzipan pastries.

From Erice, we venture to Marsala and ferry to Motya where we explore the island’s archaeological park, admire the famous Charioteer of Motya, and enjoy a traditional Carthaginian/North African barbeque lunch. From Motya, we continue southwards to Selinunte which presents students with the most expansive archaeological site found in Italy. After a visit to the three temples outside the city walls, students move to the acropolis. A special feature here is evidence of continuing North African presence alongside Greeks and then Romans, indicated by a mosaic of the Carthaginian goddess Tanit in a house entrance-hall.

The next day we visit the archaeological park of Agrigento, with its prominent ridge of Doric temples, and continue with a third installment on the fine points of Doric architectural fashion. Agrigento also includes a museum visit so students can see and be dwarfed by one of the monumental telamones that decorated the temple of Zeus here, one of the largest Greek temples ever built and the greatest in Sicily. The afternoon concludes with free time on the beautiful beaches of the Scala dei Turchi.

Our itinerary then takes us to the Villa Romana del Casale, one of the largest & richest collections of ancient Roman mosaics in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site. The afternoon introduces students to the baroque presence in Sicily through visits to Modica and Noto, where the Norman architecture presents a remarkably harmonious complex of churches, monumental staircases, municipal halls, and broad avenues, all placed in strategically theatrical positions vis-à-vis the landscape. Food is featured as well, with a sampling of the distinctive production of chocolate - for which Modica is known - at one of the oldest chocolate factories in Italy.

Our next stop is the city of Syracuse. The group visits Ortigia, the island that was the focal point for both the fateful Sicilian expedition of the Peloponnesian Wars and the second Punic War, when the scientist Archimedes was killed here by the Romans. Students then make their way to the spring of Arethusa, the remarkable fresh-water spring that attracted the first Greek colonists to the island, and hear the myth of Arethusa’s journey to this spot from mainland Greece. A high point of the day is the Duomo of Siracusa—yet another baroque church, built not anew but incorporating the substantial remains of the Doric temple of Athena erected in the 5th century BCE. Later that afternoon, in the archaeological park of Syracuse, students learn about the Greek soldiers held prisoner in the quarries there and test the acoustics of the great cave known as the ear of Dionysius. The Greek theater provides a setting for an introduction to Greek drama and its relationship to the design of the space. Finally, in the evening we visit Catania where we will embark on a street food tour, tasting various Sicilian treats while taking in the vista of Mt. Etna along one of the city’s broad avenues. Once again, the cultural complexity is evident everywhere, from the baroque Duomo and municipal buildings all constructed of volcanic stone to the Egyptian obelisk surmounting an ancient elephant, perhaps Carthaginian or Roman, sculpted from the volcanic rock.

The following day we head for Aci Trezza, one of Catania’s suburban beach resorts, to admire the large rock formations in the water that are fancifully associated with the rocks the Cyclops threw as Odysseus and his men escaped from the island. The next two days, students experience the natural history of the island through a visit to the largest volcano in Europe, Mt. Etna, covered as it was in a layer of snow, as well as a guided trek through the Alcantara Gorge, a natural wonder carved out by the Alcantara River. Our trip culminates with an evening and morning spent in the peaceful seaside town of Cefalu as well as the nearby archaeological site of Solunto before bidding our final farewell to Sicily.

Sample Itinerary

This Senior Project spends the first few weeks learning about marine research. We will do various small projects learning about local marine species and conservation efforts in New England.

The final week of the Senior Project is spent in a field course in the Caribbean with our partner research group, Beneath the Waves. The students will tag various species of sharks, catalog their measurements, and take DNA, muscle, and blood samples. In this way, students learn more about sharks' health and the quality of the ocean.