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

German Art Song (Lieder)--the Philosophy of Music and Poetry

I wrote my beloved dissertation on a form within the so-called German classical music tradition called "art songs" or "Lieder" (singular: "Lied"). A Lied is a poem set to music, usually by someone other than the poet. The poet may or may not have known the composer, or given their blessing to having it set to music--there was no copyright in those days, so the composer could use any text they wanted and do anything they pleased with it. My greatest fascination is with the meeting--or confrontation--of two separate artistic wills, and the magical transformation that happened when a composer like Franz Schubert or Robert Schumann set a poem to music. When it went well, the whole is more than the sum of its two parts. I'm hoping to turn this dissertation into a book and will need help with many parts of the process, including finding citations for quotes and sources that I already have, and also finding new material to enhance or deepen the argument. I might even need help getting permission from various places to use quotes, materials, or pictures (don't worry, I'd help you help me with technical stuff like that!). If you're interested in queer studies, there's also a connection (even if not a very obvious one) between that and my German art song project that I'd love help developing. Knowledge of German, or at least curiosity about it and a desire to learn, is helpful though not required--same goes for music.

Music, Philosophy, Linguistics

R.J

A Collection of Creative Pieces

Could be a collection of poems that you'll have written by the end of the project timeline, short biographical segments paired with poems, an a capella rap "album". Emphasis on self expression.

Music, Biology, Creative Writing

Julian

Compose Electronic Music

Compose electronic music by using learned software and production tools. Either make a stand-alone piece, a live performance, or a live-generated music composition.

Music

Albert

Writing and Recording a Song

I will work with the student to build out a song from the initial concept/harmony ideas to a fully recorded final project. In the process I will teach the student the basics of recording and mixing, along with how to structure a song and how to find the right chords and arrangement to express their vision.

Music, Arts, Computer Science

Cody

Website Building (for a Business or Other Purposes)

I will help guide you on how to build your own website via Wix or a free online website builder. At the end of our sessions, you will have a landing page for your project.

Biotech, Music, Business

Teryn

Writing a Research Project Grant

I will coach you through the methodology of developing and writing a research grant for funding.

Biotech, Music, Business

Teryn

Study buddy application

Design a mobile app for a study buddy or learning companion. This project will focus on creating a user-friendly and visually appealing user interface (UI) and optimizing the user experience (UX) to enhance studying and academic performance.

Music, Arts, Business

Maxwell

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

Thomas

Using DepMap to visualize gene expression and genetic dependency in cancer cell lines

The Dependency map (DepMap) portal provides access to key cancer dependencies analytical and visualization tools. the DepMap uses CRISPR gene knockout to describe genomic dependencies in cancer cell lines. In this project, we will first identify a gene of interest through literature review and understand the qualitative nature of mutations of this gene in cancer cell lines. Then we will visualize dependency scores for genes of interest for each major type of cancer. Using the data and literature, we will be able to understand the correlation between levels of gene expression and genetic dependency in cancer cell lines, potentially leading to interesting research targets. If the student has a background in coding, there are numerous ways to visualize gene expression in R. However, no background in coding is necessary, as DepMap provides a user-friendly interface.

Music, Cancer, Chemistry

Holly

Research-creation

Research-creation: Do you like to compose music based on a concept, book, movie, or a subject of your interest? I can help you come up with a research plan, map out a structure for your music, compose, record, mix, and master it. Along the way, I can help you come up with a memorable melody, interesting harmony, and compelling instrumental arrangement. If you are interested in electroacoustic music, we will work on finding, recording, processing, manipulating, and layering sounds to create an interesting sonic world. Whatever approach you choose, we will use notation software, digital audio workstation, sound libraries, acoustic and virtual instruments to realize your music. Image from Pexels

Music

Parisa

Machine learning to optimize optical performance of solar cells

With the rise of large-scale materials databases such as the Materials Project and ICSD, a wealth of information is already available for many types of materials. However, these databases are often missing essential information about optical properties (such as absorption) as these calculations are expensive. One strategy is to use machine learning as a tool to speed up expensive calculations. This will allow high-throughput screening of large databases and identification of promising candidate materials for photovoltaic applications.

Music, AI/ML

Shomik

Facial Emotions to Affect Vehicle Control

Some riders may be nervous to be in an autonomous vehicle, and it's important to make smooth, safe rides for these passengers. What if their car could understand how they might be feeling, and drive slower to accommodate their cautionary feelings?

Music, AI/ML

Ross

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

Why Do the Arts Matter?

Why do the arts matter? Is there a correlation between progress in the arts and progress in society? What effects do the arts have on a community? Personal growth and development? Learning? In this project, students will consider the role of the arts not only in their lives, but in their community at large. Through research, students will present an argument for the arts in the format of their choosing.

Music

Shannon

Social Media and Mental Health Disorders

Social media is not going anywhere. We often discuss the mental health implications of the pervasiveness of social media, particularly for adolescents, but there is no definitive research as to the effects of time spent on specific social media outlets on specific symptoms. Surveying a moderate-sized group of young individuals as to their social media usage, and overlaying this data with a relevant, evidence-based questionnaire could help us understand specific adverse (or beneficial) effects that are associated with social media engagement.

Psychiatry, Music, Nutrition, Public Health

Chris

Enhanced Transfer Learning for Convolutional Neural Networks

Transfer learning is a popular mechanism to improve performance and reduce training time of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models. However, when a pretrained model well-suited for a task operates on a different scale than the original training images, it may be beneficial to change the size of the convolutional kernel. But, this requires retraining the network, making transfer learning impossible. In this project, you will develop a method for initializing kernels that maintain the effects of learned weights while having flexibility to accommodate new kernel sizes in convolutional layers.

Music, AI/ML

Ross

Responding to ancient tragedy in modern times

From Medea to Antigone, tragic women have been reworked countless times into different cultural, temporal, and geographic contexts. What happens when we move Sophocles' Antigone--a play that examines the struggle between divine and earthly authority, family and state loyalty--from ancient Greece to the US-Mexico border? (Antigone at the Border, Marc Pinate) What about if we adapt the story to a modern Pakistani family in Britain? (Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie) Analysis of the modern reception of ancient classics can take many forms--from traditional research papers that present close readings of themes from the ancient and modern texts, to creative presentations that include student-created adaptations or artistic responses to a particular work. The important thing is to carefully consider why artists and writers return so frequently to certain ancient characters, and what their work can tell us about our modern world.

Music, Literature, Languages

Julia

Critical Humanities Study of Your Choice

We can design and carry out together a project on anything in the humanities that interests you. Though I'm mainly a scholar of literature, philosophy, and music, we can work on anything in the humanities that interests you.

Music, Philosophy, Linguistics

R.J

Alternatives to Pathologizing LGBTQ+ Identities

Historically, LGBTQ+ identity in certain cultures has been pathologized. If such people were not pathologized, what other options might there be for integrating them into society? What would it look like? Has that approach been taken in any cultures, places, or times? What was the impact of not pathologizing? Can you make any practical recommendations for transitioning away from pathologization and toward integration in one small way?

Music, Psychology

Allyson

Bringing Your Story to Life

Storytelling has been around for thousands of years. It's an essential part of being human. In this project, let's bring your story to life, whether it be through film, theatre, song, or any other concept that you have in mind.

Music, Linguistics, Cognitive

Chloris