BA in Cinema and Media Arts (Honors) in Nashville United States | Vanderbilt University

The Honors program provides outstanding students with the chance to pursue an advanced independent research or creative endeavor in their final year. A CMA Honors thesis can take creative, analytical, or hybrid forms. These projects must exhibit depth, rigor, and the student's capacity to develop and maintain an argument, artistic vision, or narrative structure in a substantial format. Participants work closely with an honors thesis advisor to craft personalized projects in media production and/or academic studies.

While each project has unique requirements and rationales, we typically suggest these parameters: analytical theses should span 50-70 pages, screenplays should match feature-length standards, and film/video projects should either be substantial in duration (minimum 30-50 minutes) or consist of a collection of thematically connected shorter pieces. Students also have the option to blend creative and scholarly approaches in their work. Alternative formats are encouraged but should be reviewed with the advisor prior to application submission. Every final thesis must include a written component of at least ten pages that contextualizes the work within relevant scholarship, film/media theory, historical frameworks, and aesthetic principles (as project-appropriate) while outlining the work's objectives.