Student Research

The Bachelor’s degree awarded by the Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts (SSLA) at IBA offers a multidisciplinary program, with several fields of concentration. In their final year, SSLA students bring together this diverse learning in a year-long individual research project known as the “Culminating Experience” or CE Program. Through the course of the CE program, each student conceives, designs, executes, and produces an independent 15,000 word thesis on a topic of their choice. They are encouraged to analyse a question of special interest to them through multiple disciplinary lenses, in order to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the subject.

At the 2024 SSLA Conference, we are proud to present a variety of current CE thesis projects to a wider audience. These are works in progress and cover a diverse range of topics, disciplines, and methodologies. While SSLA offers majors in History, Media and Culture, Political Science, and Psychology, the interdisciplinary nature of CE projects allows students to venture and think alongside areas as diverse as Literature, Digital Humanities, South Asian Studies, Sociology, Fandom Studies, Criminology, and Gender Studies to name a few. Students work diligently over the course of a year to learn and develop expertise over their subject area, and one avenue to present and display their findings in an interactive and engaging manner is through a Poster display at the SSLA Student Showcase. This medium allows students to reimagine their research beyond the formal confines of the dissertation format and allows them to talk about their work with peers, faculty, and visitors.

We look forward to sharing the wonderful work of our students with a wider audience!