Capstone vs. Thesis: What’s the Difference?

One of the biggest decisions you will make in your academic journey will be deciding whether to take the capstone or thesis track. For the most up-to-date information and specific course descriptions, we recommend you reach out directly to your academic advisor or visit the course registration page. However, there is a key difference that we can hopefully help you understand better. The basic structure of capstone is typically a bi-weekly meeting with a group of
about fifteen students. The student body is further divided into peer groups of three to four members. For a semester, you and your fellow students will write and revise pages, sharing them with your peer group. In addition, you will attend a bi-weekly class full of discussions, writing exercises, peer group workshopping, and more. You will get to work on approximately 20-30 pages of your story in precapstone before heading into capstone and writing another approximately 20 pages. However, be sure to check in with your professor and the course syllabus to know for certain what the class expectations are in full.

The basic structure of the thesis track is much more personalized in that you will work one-on-one with a professor who will guide and mentor you over the course of two semesters (Crafting the Thesis Proposal and Thesis). You will still get to write a good amount of pages for your story (again, for detailed syllabus information, visit the course registration page). Both programs have their unique advantages, but it really comes down to the way you like to work.
While a capstone is great for those who like to share their work with a larger group of readers to give and receive feedback, in a thesis, you will work closely with one professor who will read and review your work. In the thesis track, the workshop element is not as focused on classroom time as in capstone because you will not be meeting for class periods, only conferences with your instructor. Thesis provides you with more personalized feedback and time for you to work on your own schedule and focus on your own story. Capstone lets you share your story with other readers and share in one another’s writing processes, but requires more classroom time. With classroom discussion time, you have the opportunity for craft-centered discussions, but it does limit your writing time.

If you like to have more eyes to pass your story around to, then capstone is a great option. But if you like the sound of building your own writing schedule and working one-on-one with an instructor, thesis is a great way to go. Either track will allow you great time to work on your story and develop a significant number of pages, which is a
fantastic denouement to your graduate program studies.

For more information on the capstone and thesis tracks, visit their course pages on your MyDCE. Be sure to reach out, ask questions, learn from the experiences of other students, and share your own experiences among the community of writers throughout HES and the CWLSC.