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.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Identifying gender and race/ethnicity biases in sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is a popular form of text analysis that uses machine learning to predict the specific emotion that the writer of the text was feeling. There are several popular machine learning models that can take a chunk of text and "assign" scores on various emotions to it. However, we know from prior research in linguistics that there are differences between gender and racial subgroups on how language is used. Thus, these popular sentiment analysis tools, which do not differentiate between gender and race, might lead to biased scores that have important future consequences. This project investigates the degree to which popular sentiment analysis models exhibit gender and racial-ethnic biases.
Psychology, Business, Statistics, Organizational Leadership
NBA Analysis Using Tableau/PowerBI
Loading and cleaning data in either platform and working through the different steps to visualize the data such as who leads the leagues in assist, points, top scorers of each position etc..
Sports Analytics, Business, Organizational Leadership
Personalized Music Therapy
Our favorite streaming services use wealths of data to predict, suggest, and present music to us that we may be interested in. Even if these services know the music we use for our 'self-care' playlists, would a behavioral health specialist agree with what we listen to? This project would require establishing the impact music can have on mental health, and how a technology could be designed to support this impact while maintaining clinical expectations of good health and privacy.
Music, Public Health, Organizational Leadership
The Business Impact of Good Product Design
Using systematic analysis, determine the monetary value to a company of investing in good design.
Psychology, Business, Organizational Leadership
What's unique about your neighborhood? Creating a neighborhood based art history project
Students would create a project based on their neighborhood, and the history, communities and cultures that exist there. This project would involve researching the demographics of their community, and potentially reaching out to different community organizations to find out more about them and their cultures. It also would involve researching the history of their neighborhood, from what indigenous people occupied the land to more recent social and political history. Then, students would create an art history project, that could be featured as a public event/ exhibit / public mural in their neighborhood. This project would be adapted to every student's geographical location, neighborhood and community and is open to creative interpretation.
Psychology, Arts, History, Literature, Social Science, Organizational Leadership
Exploring Local Agricultural Systems
Let's research how food gets to your plate and the impact of global and local agricultural systems. This research slide deck will allow you to communicate food systems impacts to an audience of peers. To build this presentation, you'll explore research papers but also interview local food systems advocates in local government and from farms in your area. This is a great way to learn about something we encounter multiple times a day (food!) that has deep global impacts that are often not obvious. This is a great project for anyone interested in food, the environment, or policy.
Business, Organizational Leadership
Meeting Room Reservation System
The application would allow users to view available, in use, and reserved rooms, as well as allow them to make, modify or cancel a reservation
Organizational Leadership
Food and food systems
Exploring the process of how your food gets to your table and the different political and social factors that contribute to food insecurity.
Arts, Social Science, Nutrition, Public Health, Organizational Leadership
Product management 101
Learn product management fundamentals and industry best practices, especially in the software industry. Learn how to identify customer requirements, define MVP and create a roadmap that delights your customers, build strategies for monetization, go-to-market, and growth. Also, build an understanding of what success for your product looks like and how/what data to use to understand the state of your business at any point in time.
Business, Organizational Leadership
Impacts of Conflict
In this project, we will analyze a region of conflict (i.e. - Balkans, Ukraine, Nigeria, etc.) and understand U.S. or international policy in that region. What are the root causes of the conflict? What are the drivers of instability? What are the impacts of the conflict? How should the U.S./international community address the conflict? The goal of this project is to produce a paper or presentation that provides an analysis of the conflict and provides lessons-learned or recommendations for U.S. Foreign Policy.
Social Science, Organizational Leadership
Factors influencing youth perceptions of mental health care
A survey study asking individuals to rate their perceptions and attitudes towards mental illness and mental health care, examining what factors (ex., gender, race/ethnicity, SES, location, sexual orientation) are associated with more positive and negative perceptions around mental wellbeing.
Psychiatry, Psychology, Organizational Leadership
Using machine learning algorithms to predict volunteer turnover
Turnover, or employees quitting an organization, is a key issue for most employers, and much prior research has examined the various job-related predictors of turnover. However, few have explored the effect of non-cognitive predictors (e.g., role ambiguity, satisfaction with colleagues) on turnover, especially among volunteer populations. Such research is particularly important with volunteers, who generally lack traditional motivators such as pay or lack of alternative options. Moreover, few studies have employed modern machine learning methods to examine the relative importance of different predictors. This study tests 14 different machine learning models on a large sample of volunteers, using a set of non-cognitive variables to predict turnover.
Psychology, Business, Statistics, Organizational Leadership
Real Effects of Environmental Disclosures
An important strain of accounting research examines whether accounting has "real effects". For example, researchers may investigate whether accounting regulations affect firms' investment decisions, employees' career decisions or consumers' purchasing decisions. Many accounting regulations require firms to disclose additional information about their operations in the financial statements. For this reason, accounting researchers are particularly interested in the real effects of disclosures. Recently, Google started disclosing the carbon dioxide emissions for flights in its search engine results, as well as whether those emissions are above or below average for a flight with that departure airport and destination. In this research project, I examine whether this environmental disclosure effects individual's flight choices.
Quantitative, Business, Organizational Leadership
Project Management Execution
Build a set of tools to manage any project end-to-end from hypothesis statement to research to analysis to recommendations.
Organizational Leadership
Explore your family's global history: Family ancestry & migration project
Students would have the opportunity to research their own family's history, using public historical databases, and create an artistic representation of their lineage (collage, Prezi, graphic design, etc.). Students could focus on learning more about each country and city where their family lived, including art, culture and traditions. They also could focus on interviewing family members and recording stories and tales that have been passed through their family for generations. This project is very flexible and would be adapted to each student, depending on their family's history and their level of connection to family knowledge.
Psychology, Arts, History, Literature, Social Science, Organizational Leadership
Develop Your Startup Blueprint in Ten Sessions
Develop Your Startup Blueprint in Ten Sessions Want to start your own business? Whether you have a unique business idea or you're driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, I will help you every step of the way. I have a wealth of experience in startups and valuable insights into the entrepreneurial process. My goal as a mentor is to assist you in refining your startup idea and guiding it to success through ten informative sessions. Together, we will simplify the concept of startups, generate business ideas, identify your target audience, and create an outstanding business plan. Additionally, we will explore marketing, finances, team building, product development, and scaling strategies. By the end of these sessions, you'll feel confident and well-prepared to navigate your entrepreneurial journey. Get excited ;)
Business, Organizational Leadership
Build Your Own Business Using the Lean Start-up Method
Do you wish you could be on Shark Tank? Through this project, a student would learn how to develop their own business using the Lean Start-up Method. This includes learning how to do market research, developing a business plan, and creating a pitch deck. The ultimate goal is to get investment!
Psychiatry, Social, Psychology, Philanthropy, Business, Organizational Leadership
Develop an advocacy plan for a policy issue
Learn how to develop an advocacy plan that targets a specific audience to increase their support for and/or adoption of a particular policy issue.
Philanthropy, Organizational Leadership
What happened to the largest company in the world? The Dutch East India Trading Company
Scholarly paper discussing the fall and demise of one of the largest companies in the world, the Dutch East India Trading Company. The goal of the history paper a student writes is for self fulfillment, for learning, and to submit and be published in the Concord Review. -Hypothesis led approach to writing -Originating primary and secondary sources -Translating primary and secondary sources -Academic citations -Analysis of sources
Finance, Organizational Leadership
Product Management 101
Gain real-world experience at product management. Whether you're more interested in traditional product management, UX design, UX research, or product analytics, we'll create a custom experience that lets you learn.
Philanthropy, Business, Organizational Leadership
