PPE is grateful to all faculty members who have agreed to supervise the honors theses of PPE students. This page contains information that describe the process of supervising a honors thesis for a PPE student.
(1) Students are required to be formally enrolled in a class- PPE 301- for doing their honors theses. The instructor will normally be the supervisor of the thesis.
(2) PPE leaves the nature of the honors thesis to be jointly determined by the supervisor and student. There are no minimal number of pages - an Economics thesis might be shorter, and a Political Science thesis longer. Generally speaking, the thesis should be a substantial body of intellectual work that may be expected from a student about to graduate with distinction - faculty members in departments at Penn may wish to demand work comparable to that which they expect from their own students. A further check on quality is ensured by having the work be supervised by a member of the standing faculty at Penn.
(3) After the student has found a supervisor and agreed upon a plan of research, and the kind of work that is expected made clear, the student should inform PPE in writing, and provide the email address of the supervisor. PPE will then confirm the arrangements with the faculty member in writing.
(4) PPE requires that the honors theses be complete and a grade received by PPE from the supervisor by the last day of exams week of the last semester of the student. A written indication (email is fine) of the supervisor's assessment of the work should be received by this time. This is independent of turning in a grade to the registrar for PPE 301, which should be done in the usual manner. An informal rule of thumb for awarding of honors is that the work should be at a level that would justify a grade of at least B or better.
Honors theses work may not be completed after graduation.