OCS Becomes Comps

Are you anticipating that your off-campus studies could become the core of your senior comprehensive exercise? If so, heed the advice and experience of Carleton students who have done just that.

Select a research topic and OCS program

• Select a subject that will best be studied off-campus and find the appropriate country and program to research that topic
• Find programs that support field research
• Consider going on more than one OCS program
• Consider applying for a research fellowship

Prepare for your research

• Develop needed language skills
• Plan how you want to use your off-campus studies research for comps.
• Determine resources you should take with you
• Determine if you need IRB approval (you will if you use human subjects)
• Check your major’s comps requirements

Work closely with your adviser

• Find a Carleton faculty adviser who can provide concrete advice about the use of your off-campus research in your comps project
• Work closely with your faculty adviser to determine how your field research can best be used as part of your comps project.

Develop and maintain contacts

• Locate one or two in-country contacts who can help legitimize your requests for interviews and site visits
• Don’t be bashful about contacting other scholars whom you discover while conducting your research
• Keep in touch with the people you met and/or hosted you

Be flexible

• Field research can be slow. Be prepared to adapt to delays and schedule accordingly. Organization is everything in the field!
• Be open to the information that you receive in the field. It may be very different from what you were led to understand, but it can actually strengthen your project.
• Allow time to readjust to the US, Northfield and Carleton after being off-campus for a period of time.

Extend your research beyond comps

• Be prepared to make choices - your field research may be more extensive than a single comps paper can accommodate.
• If you have additional stories that you need to tell, use the OCS office and/or campus publications as a resource. Present your field research as an Athenaeum event.
• As you develop future research questions as part of your comps project, think about topics that you can explore in graduate school.