2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas

Turn inspirations into your passion project.

This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Check out some projects

Poetry Inside Out: Translating Poetry Across Cultures

Are you interested in widening your horizons by reading poetry from a wide variety of cultures and perspectives? Do you want to develop your literary analysis and translation skills? This project involves getting stuck into the close reading of poems in many languages, and translating them into English step by step and with great attention to detail. It allows for a reflection on the non-equivalence between different languages, on the varying contexts in which poems were written, and the many creative ways to render poetic form and signification in English. This project draws on resources from the multilingual literacy program, Poetry Inside Out, based in San Francisco. Each poem comes with a translator's dictionary, and so there is no need to understand the language of the original. Throughout the time together, we would read translation theory to think about the goals and challenges of poetry moving between cultures and languages. We would then read and translate a range of poems together, and reflect on the many translation options and the effect of the new poem created in translation. For the final project, you would be guided through the development of a mini poetry in translation anthology for potential publication. Alternatively, you could produce a reflective essay on the importance and challenges of translating poetry between cultures. I would love your input and can adapt the content to your interests!

Creative Writing

Sarah

Academic Article

When you study literature in a formal academic way, you are a student not just of stories, but of culture, human nature, politics, power, and intimate human wishes crawling their way into fictional narratives that are real artifacts of actual lived experience. Academic research in the humanities is a rich and satisfying way to grow as a critical thinker, and the rigor it takes to manage and blend historical texts with theoretical and fictional texts is a great way to hone your research skills and expand your writing skills. Academic research is designed for an audience of experts, and it is important to challenge yourself and step into that role of learning how to rhetorically perform expertise in a persuasive and effective way.

Creative Writing

John

How to do Nothing

Activities and reflections geared around "doing nothing". To find cracks and gaps in a busy day to be nothing: not a student, not a sibling, not a friend, not even a member of society. Just be nothing. Just exist and everything else with unfold by itself. Do "nothing" and see what "somethings" can happen!

Philosophy, Psychology, Literature, Creative Writing

Kelley

Review / Cultural criticism

The review--far from being only a positive or negative evaluation of something--is a compelling and thoughtful form for thinking through not only a work of art (a book, an album, a film, a TV show, a painting, etc.), but also its larger significance. What does it mean? Why does it matter? For whom? Writing a review requires close attention to your subject: how do you describe it with words? How do you summarize its intentions, features, and effects? How do you deconstruct all of this, and then figure out what you think about it? Putting the object of your analysis in context--a time, a place, a cultural moment--can open up fascinating questions, ones that you can answer from your own unique perspective!

Literature, Creative Writing

Ian

Women Who Write Travel

In a genre often dominated by men, female travel writers tend to be overlooked. This project will be a deep dive into the women who have written about place, nature, and culture over the last 150 years.

Creative Writing

Jessica

The Captive Medea

This project would look at a number of modern representations of Medea in art and reflect on how the classical conception of this figure has changed to address modern issues of subjugation, power, femininity, and captivity. Material from anthropology and psychology would also be brought in to address the social realities of captivity in the classical period, and show how the cultural frameworks for understanding captive status and enslavement have shifted in the modern period, and what effect this has had on representations of Medea today.

Literature, Languages, Creative Writing

River

Film Review

Watching movies is one thing, but writing the perfect film review that passionately captures why you love or despise a particular movie can be a profoundly useful exercise in analysis and argumentation. In the current media landscape, film reviews in many formats, both written and visual, can be a great way for a writer to build an online following and community- an essential step for modern writers looking to live a public writing life. Writing a film review might just help you unravel something true about life and your own experience along the way to crafting a compelling argument that makes all of your readers want to see the movie just to continue the conversation you helped spark.

Creative Writing

John

1 - 3 Album Songs

Have a concept for an album in mind but can't seem to put notes to paper? Or, do you have a couple songs but want to find a way to tie them together into a larger concept? These are all great and exciting places to be in, and I would love to help you manifest your visions!

Music, Creative Writing, Illustration

Katherine

Psychology Interventions

As a Cognitive Studies, I became extremely proficient at reading and understanding psychology research studies, and even designing and implementing my own research studies. One research study I completed as an undergrad was called "Effects of Student Satisfaction with Exam Grades on Motivation and Study Strategies." If there is a psychology intervention you are curious to test, I could help you build a strong foundation for your study by helping you find existing literature and understanding it, and then designing and implementing your research study!

Music, Social, Arts, Creative Writing, Social Science, Cognitive

Sophia

Launch a Social Media Brand | Elevate LLC

Help me to expand my business on social media, including content design and marketing strategy across Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and any other relevant platforms.

Creative Writing, Business

Ben

Short Story Project

Whether you want to explore a personal childhood memory or create a whole new science fiction world, we can work together, from idea to final product, in order to develop a short story you are proud of.

Literature, Creative Writing, Social Science

Olivia

Beyoncé as Poetry? Street Performance as Prose?

Rap. Movies. Musicals. That street performer who jumped over your head. Writing does not just mean a poem by a white man from the 1800s. Writing is the accordion player on the subway. The giggling baby dancing in a snow suit. Through this project we'll uncover how words show up in our everyday surroundings through (non?)fiction and poetry, using as many artistic mediums as you wish.

Creative Writing, Linguistics

Amanda

Caring in an Unsettling World

In recent years, the field of anthropology has produced a comprehensive body of work focused upon the issue of care. Evidence from various anthropological sites shows how care is a resource, relation, and a practice that touches upon the intimate and familial, as well as the economic and the political. Care is contextual and specific, a polysemic concept emerging from the connections between macroforces and microprocesses (Buch 2015). As a practice, it “connotes some kind of engagement” (Tronto 1993), one intended to be, above all, restorative and world-building. Yet, after years of facing a global pandemic that has exacerbated the social, political, environmental, and economic instability, one cannot help but ask how we are to care in a world that seems to be falling apart. What does care look like in a society pierced by precarity, illness, pervasive racism, environmental destruction, and faltering democracy? Can we care? How do we do it? You can write an essay that reflects on this topics and aims to answer to this question.

Literature, Photography, Creative Writing

Magdalena

Poetry and Social Media

The rise of social media networks, particularly Instagram, have created a boom in the poetry world because of the quick and widespread way these short, imagistic poems can circulate. How has social media impacted the study of poetry as we know it? Have more people been interested in poetry because of these "instapoets"?

Social, Psychology, Literature, Creative Writing

Leela

Unearthing Mythological Archetypes Operating in Exceptional Film Structure

By applying the works of such writers on mythology as Joseph Campbell, Carol Pearson, Riane Eisler and Carl Jung, among others, a prospective student can illuminate the Hero’s Journey underlying the storytelling effectiveness of a chosen film.

Creative Writing

Jeffry

Asian American Mental Health

What are the cultural factors that impact mental health for Asian Americans? In our work together, we can think through your specific interest in Asian American mental health and explore how various systemic, cultural, historical, and social factors impact Asian Americans in this country today.

Psychology, Creative Writing, Social Science

Cindy

Racial Wealth Gap in New Jersey

Did you know New Jersey has one of the largest state-wide racial wealth gaps in the U.S.? In this project, you'll search for data to further understand this issue. You'll answer questions like: what's the difference between income and wealth? We'll analyze statistics and perform research into the history of the state to understand how it got to its present-day crisis. You may also research solutions and relevant steps to end this disparity throughout the state of New Jersey.

Creative Writing

Alison

Literary Translation in Theory and in Practice

Have you ever been interested in translating from Chinese to English? English to French? Chinese to French? Come talk to me if that kind of project excites you! I love languages and would be more than thrilled to supervise and mentor a translation project where we study existing translations, learn about critical translation theory as well as translating a text of your choice! For example, we can work on learning to translate some of Baudelaire's poems into Chinese or English. In such a project, we would would learn about the history of translations of Baudelaire, explore questions and themes in critical translation theory, perform a critical comparison of the existing translations of his poetic works, and finally translate poems that you find particularly interesting.

Creative Writing

Jin

Art as a form of expression

In a world full of chaos, expressing oneself is necessary. I believe there is an artist in everyone. In this project, I help you turn an issue, whether political, social, economic... and turn it into a body of work. The body of work can be physical if you wish it to be or it can remain conceptual through its description. The main purpose of this project is using our creativity to approach a concept or topic in a way that is outside of the box.

Arts, Creative Writing

Rebecca

Feminist Art/Writing

This project would revolve around intersectional feminism through time, combining various art forms you're interested in. Movie clips and podcast excerpts centered on feminist leaders can be woven into poetry, creating a 4D sensory experience for viewers.

Creative Writing, Linguistics

Amanda