Pictured room credit: me! (The Sims Curator/rachelwolfe)
Your Capstone Experience: Senior Projects, Theses, & Showcases
Like most things in the Get Schooled instructions, senior projects are optional but make for good gameplay! Here are some senior project rules if you want to follow them:
If you are doing a DISTINGUISHED DEGREE, you must complete a senior thesis/project/showcase during your final term at university, consisting of one of the following:
Art History: View 5-10 works of art on a specific theme (pieces by Princess Cordelia, founders statues across various worlds, the tragic art history of the Von Haunt Estate, irreverent twists on classic pieces by Trashley Reelpearson, etc.), take photographs of all your subject pieces, and then complete a senior thesis on the topic of that series by contributing knowledge on a research archive machine. Skills Required: Research & Debate level 6 and a skill that relates to your topic above level 2 (ex: Painting).
Biology: Decide what aspect of biology you want to focus on for your senior thesis:
Biochemistry: Do an internship with FutureSim Labs (scientist career) between terms, and come back for the final term of university knowing at least one serum recipe. Obtain all the necessary ingredients for your serum by using the online mail-order crystal service, the Tidal Tower greenhouse, swiping stuff from the geology collection, etc. Once you have all the ingredients, use the Tidal Tower materials lab to make at least three copies of the serum, then invite three test subjects to the lab and give them each a copy of the serum to drink. Note the results for each test subject in the “private journal” item that came with Parenthood.
Botany: Research all the plants in the small greenhouse in Tidal Tower. Notebook entries will be automatically generated by the game.
Pathology: Contract a disease and then cure yourself of it. This can be done by letting the rodent cages in Tidal Tower get dirty and the rodents unhappy, then playing with them to contract rabid rodent fever. Research the cure on a computer to cure yourself. (Alternatives: provoke Greg in Moonwood Mill to contract werebies and cure by any sweat out/purge options that come up on household items, eat a bizarre fruit and then do the whole StrangerVille mystery including developing a vaccine, add Mold to your lot to contract moldinitis then clean the mold and yourself to cure it, or put the “ailments” settings back on in the pack settings menu to contract and ailment and then make yourself the cure on an apothecary table). Make notes in one of the “private journals” from Parenthood at each stage.
Zoology: spend a bunch of time watching fish and caring for rodents and/or insects at Tidal Tower. Take notes by making entries in one of the “private journals” from Parenthood after each interaction or viewing session. The experiment is complete when you harvest the insects or one of the rodents does something interesting.
. . . and then complete your senior thesis by contributing knowledge on a research archive machine. Skills Required: Research & Debate level 6, Gardening, Logic, or Apothecary above level 2.
Communications: read three non-fiction books for reference, then write a motivational book (confident mood), non-fiction book, or biography. This book constitutes your thesis, so give it a thesis-y title. Once you have written it and have it in your inventory, go to the Felix Psyded College of Humanities on the UBrite campus, invite the “UBrite Professors” club by clicking on any professor you know in the relationships tab and selecting “invite club . . .”, and then give a public reading of your book at the microphone upstairs. Afterward, debate professors at the podium pair—this is your thesis defense. As soon as you win one of the debates, you have successfully defended your thesis and may now publish it! Go you! Skills Required: Writing level 3, Research & Debate level ??? (depends on your professors’ skill relative to yours, and the random chance rolled by the game).
Computer Science: make a mobile phone app. This may not sound like much compared to some of the other senior projects, but you need very high programming skill and a load of time to do it. Skill Required: Programming level 7.
Culinary Arts: plan a menu around a theme (geographical, a specific ingredient that all the dishes share, upscale cuisine, peasant fare, comfort foods, etc.). This menu should include at least one appetizer dish, a main course dish, a side dish, a dessert, and a featured drink, though you may, of course, do multiples in any/all of these categories if you wish. Use the “create a family recipe” interaction from Businesses & Hobbies to add a secret ingredient and specialized effect to at least one of these dishes—this will be your signature dish. Once you have planned your whole menu, source all the ingredients you will need for it (ordering groceries, buying from public stalls, fishing, prepping ingredients on the stand mixer, stealing from Foxbury’s biology rooms, etc.), until you have every necessary ingredient in your inventory. If you’re not sure what all you will need, check by trying to make the dish at either the Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV Lecture Hall or the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts—these lots both have the “Simple Living” lot trait, so it should tell you. Once you have all the ingredients in hand, cook up your whole menu at the commercial kitchen in the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts and set it out on the food display tables in the adjoining formal dining room. Finally, invite your professors, friends, family, and classmates over to the lot and invite them to enjoy your banquet. This banquet constitutes your senior showcase. Skills Required: Homestyle Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, Mixology, and/or Baking, at various skill levels depending on the particular menu you’ve planned.
Drama: decide on a focus skill or mix and match (i.e. do all the listed things for however many of these skills you decide to focus on:
Acting: Join the “Drama Majors” club if you haven’t already in order to get access to the theatre stage at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts. Use the “modify club outfits” feature to costume your fellow actors and yourself according to whatever theme/play you want to go with. Feel free to change the scenery on the stage and the poster in the lobby of the theatre using build mode as well, so your costumes, scenery, and poster all match. Meet at least one member of the “Audience” club and the “UBrite Professors” club so you can invite those clubs to hang out at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts when you’re ready to perform, then call a gathering of the “Drama Majors” club and use the acting marks to act with them. Use every acting mark and perform a scene of your choice for tips.
Comedy: Compose a medium or long comedy routine at a computer, then practice it using the microphones at the Lord Bernard Escargot Shallot IV Lecture Hall. After you’ve practiced it, go back to the computer and refine it. Repeat these steps until the routine is excellent quality, then perform your routine at the poetry/comedy/writing club at the Felix Psyded College of the Humanities, preferably on a Thursday evening so the audience of the Tea & Poetry event will be there to hear you.
Dance: Join the “Drama Majors” club if you haven’t already in order to get access to the theatre stage at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts. Use “modify club outfits” to set whatever outfit you’d like to perform in, and change around the scenery to whatever you’d like in build mode. Meet at least one member of the “Audience” club and the “UBrite Professors” club so you can invite those clubs to hang out at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts when you’re ready to perform, then use the invisible dance floor on the stage to either “show off dance move . . .” for every move you know as a solo showcase or do a group dance with other members of the club for a group showcase (or both). If you’ve acquired the “Child of the Village” or “Macabre” traits or gotten to level 4 of the Selvadoradian Culture skill, you may also want to show off the specialty dances that come with those, plus you can perform musical scenes that come with unique dance moves at the acting marks.
Singing: Join the “UBrite Symphony” club if you haven’t already to get access to the concert hall stage at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts. Do not actually call a gathering of this club, or you’ll get a cacophony of different music onstage—just join. Meet at least one member of the “Audience” club and the “UBrite Professors” club so you can invite those clubs to hang out at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts when you’re ready to perform, then use the microphone, guitar, piano, or karaoke machine to sing all the songs in the Theatre Drama genre. Duets are permissible, but you’d be well advised to check that your duet partner has adequate singing skill.
. . . That’s it! The performance is your senior showcase. If you’re doing a combo, you might want to specifically perform a musical scene or a comedy scene for tips, but that’s up to you. Skills Required: Acting level 3 OR Comedy level 6 OR Dance level 5 OR Singing level 7 or some combination of the above, with optional additional skills in Guitar level 3, Piano level 3, and/or Selvadoradian Culture level 4. Phew!
Economics: once you hit level 8 of the Research & Debate skill, start writing a research paper at a computer (on the subject of economics, of course), but don’t quite finish it. Then, once you hit level 10, invite the “Foxbury Professors” club to the Maritime Lecture Hall and give a professional commentary at the podium pair on the top floor explaining the research paper you wrote. Afterward, hold a series of professional debates with your professors until you win one—this is your thesis defense. Once you have successfully defended your senior thesis, finish writing the paper and it will automatically get published! Go you! Skill Required: Research & Debate level 10.
Fine Art: decide on a specific art to focus on (painting, pottery, sculpture, papercraft, gemology, flower arranging, knitting, cross-stitch, piano, guitar, pipe organ, violin, singing, etc.), falling broadly into either of the following two categories, and do the associated thing:
Music: Write a song or lyrics on your chosen instrument(s). Once the song is finished, join the “UBrite Symphony” club if you haven’t already to gain access to the concert hall stage at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts. Do not actually call a gathering of this club, or you’ll get a cacophony of different music onstage—just join. Meet at least one member each of the “Audience” and “UBrite Professors” clubs so you can invite both clubs to hang out at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts when you’re ready to perform, then use the microphone, guitar, piano, violin, or pipe organ to perform the original song you wrote. Bravo!
Visual Arts: Create a collection of pieces in your chosen medium, focusing on arts that can give special emotional effects if possible. Show your collection in the art gallery at the Cordelia Thebe Royal College of the Arts by adding it to the display cases, pedestals, or walls of the gallery as appropriate (if you need to remove something else that’s already there, that’s totally fine—student exhibitions are meant to rotate). Once your exhibition is set up, invite your professors, family, and friends to come see it by creating a group and choosing “view together” on each of your pieces.
. . . That’s it! The performance or exhibition is your senior showcase. Skills Required: level 8 of any music skill OR whatever skill level you’re at with your chosen visual art. Hey, there’s nothing in the rules that says your senior showcase can’t feature bad art! Though of course, I don’t recommend it.
History: go on the faculty-led field expedition to Selvadorada between terms and do enough archaeology to come into your final term loaded up with artifact-shaped dirt clumps. Spend your final term uncovering and authenticating them, until you have enough authenticated artifacts to fill the display case in the downstairs formal library at the Felix Psyded College of the Humanities (counterfeit artifacts don’t count—discard them). Remove whatever artifacts are currently in the display case and replace them with your own discoveries, then use the “study collection” interaction on the display case itself. While the focused moodlet from this is active, start writing a research paper on a computer, but don’t quite finish it. Next, invite all your professors to the Felix Psyded College of the Humanities, form a group with them, and view your collection together, then head into the debate hall to hold a series of debates with them. Once you win a debate against a professor, you have successfully defended your thesis and may now finish and publish it! Go you! Skills Required: Archaeology level 3, Research & Debate level 8.
Language and Literature: write an entire novel, in a genre of your choice. Once the novel is written and in your inventory, go to the Felix Psyded College of the Humanities with all your professors, friends, and family and give a book reading from your novel at the poetry/comedy/writing club space. If you went with poetry as a genre, I highly recommend doing this on a Thursday evening to coincide with the “Tea & Poetry” event, though that’s also a good idea no matter what genre you went with. After this senior showcase reading, you may sell your novel to a publisher—you’re beyond self-publishing now. Go you! Skill Required: Writing level 5.
Physics: decide which aspect of physics you’d like to focus on for your thesis:
Astronomy & Rocket Science: Use the observatory on the roof of Tidal Tower until you’ve gained at least four collectible prints, one each obtained while doing the “observe the sky,” “stargaze,” “moongaze,” and “search for the truth” interactions. Display your prints in the little planetarium room you walk through to get to the observatory (feel free to swap out the ones that are already there—student exhibitions are meant to rotate!). Then, complete the rocket ship at the Maritime Lecture Hall by taking active rocket science classes (if you haven’t already done so) and use the rocket ship to explore space until you get any space collectible. Add this collectible to your prints in the planetarium room. Finally, invite all your professors to the planetarium room with you and choose “view together” on all the finds in your display!
Fabrication & Invention: Do an internship (or several) between terms with either FutureSim Labs (scientist career) or Lean Green Design Co-Op (civil designer career). Invent something during the course of your internship. Come back to university with the schematic in mind, and spend your final term creating a prototype of that thing in the Maritime Lecture Hall materials lab. Once you have the prototype in hand, invite all the professors you know to a demonstration of its capabilities. This will vary from invention to invention, so you might be doing anything from freezing one of them with the SimRay to feeding them each a feaux meat cube from the meat wall you set up in the Tidal Tower greenhouse (I recommend using the “Any Where, Any Fare food stand” from Home Chef Hustle to get non-household sims to eat things on site).
Robotics: Build the most advanced robot you’re able to at whatever skill level you’ve achieved by the beginning of your final term, including making all the components. Once your robot is done, invite all the professors you know to come see it in action and do a demo of its skills—for example, you might show off a gardener bot at the greenhouse in Tidal Tower, or you might prank and purposefully break a toilet somewhere to show off the skills of your fixer bot, etc.
. . . That’s it! The items you constructed and demonstrated in each of these variants constitute your senior project—no writing or defense necessary! Skills Required: Logic level 7 OR Fabrication level 3 OR Robotics level 3 OR Rocket Science at any level.
Psychology: once you hit level 8 Research & Debate skill, start writing a research paper at a computer (on the subject of psychology, of course), but don’t quite finish it. Then, when you hit Research & Debate level 10, invite all the professors you know to the Maritime Lecture Hall and give a professional commentary at the podium pair explaining the research paper you wrote. Afterward, hold a series of professional debates with your professors until you win one—this is your thesis defense. Once you have successfully defended your senior thesis, you may finish and publish it! Go you! Skill Required: Research & Debate level 10.
Villainy: You literally only have to bribe your professor in order to finish a distinguished degree in Villainy, but you have to do it with dirty money. Break into someone’s vault to steal the money, swipe an expensive object and fence it (meaning: you have to sell this via a sales table, sales wall, or retail store, you can’t just sell it to the catalog), hack any organization online to commit wire fraud, blackmail someone for the money using any of the various blackmail mechanics we have in this game, commit insurance fraud using shady business perks or spellcaster abilities, pickpocket or ferociously intimidate people or shake them down using evil ghost powers, whatever’s available to you. Just get that $1,000 however you can, and then gift it to Prof. Robin Banks. Skills Required: . . . ? Possibly Mischief, possibly Programming, possibly nothing. There are a lot of shady ways to get money, and not all of them are linked to skills. Good luck, kid.
