Senior seminar cookie system 🍪

The cookie system was conceived during the 2008-2009 school year, and first implemented in Fall, 2009. We had observed that arguably the biggest risk for students in our Senior Seminar was simply putting things off, and our goal was to create a system that rewarded people for getting stuff in on time, and had some teeth for people that were falling chronically behind.

The system we came up with is quite simple. You get a cookie for accomplishing various tasks. Cookies can be used as a 1-day “late coupon” for other cookie-marked deadlines. You are allowed to miss one class, and every extra missed class will cost you a cookie (unless it is a medically or otherwise excused absence). If at any point you go below zero cookies, you fail the class

We start the first week with a number of simple tasks that earn you an initial store of cookies, and after that you can earn cookies for being on-time with intermediate products (e.g., an outline), or use cookies to buy late days.