Directed Reading, Independent Study,...

<p>I read that some students take advantage of the college in individually supervised reading or research writing classes. Apparently one-to-one supervised research is an opportunity mostly for juniors or seniors. There are also directed reading and independent study. I'm not quite sure what those are. How do you do any of these things? Does anyone have experience with them? I am interested in them because people have said that the one-to-one research is sort of like a capstone in college.</p>

<p>I understand the questions you are asking, but not why you are posing them on CC. If I were a student at Swarthmore (as you appear to be) and had these questions I would directly contact the department chairman of the area of study I was interested in, discuss it with him/her, and get names of students that had done this, and further discuss it with them. Seems like a much more direct route to an answer (unless you are trying to reach students at other schools).</p>

<p>You have to find a mentor you’d like to work with, and talk to him/her. The students who choose to do this usually have a specific project in mind, and know which professor they want to work with.</p>