The themes of brutality and dehumanization in Eugene O'Neill's play "The Hairy Ape" provide a chance to craft your senior thesis using one of the most famous plays by a man often regarded as America's greatest playwright. O'Neill created a setting that eschewed naturalism in order to reveal the brutal situations that dehumanize his characters. Look at O'Neill's urge to show that the Industrial Revolution had created a progression to a state where dependence on machinery for commerce degraded the nobility of humanity.
The institution of standardized testing as the primary judging value in the American educational system around the turn of the 20th century resulted from the growth of faith in science. Scientific methods were a hallmark of this progressive era in the history of education in the United States, and coincided with the growing advocacy of centralizing schools. You, as a thesis writer, would therefore have 100 years of research to help in determining if the system is ready for another wholesale and expansive revolution in theory.
Students pursuing a degree in either philosophy or media studies should consider a senior thesis that examines the role of kitsch as a product of class relations. Art critic Clement Greenberg identified kitsch as a lower form of art created to satisfy the cultural needs of the lower classes, who were not exposed to and perhaps could not be expected to appreciate higher forms of art. This thesis could also analyze the effect of centralization into cities as a result of the transformation from agrarian to industrial societies. Consider Greenberg's assertion that kitsch is best viewed as an example of cultural repression that is able to satisfy the desire for artistic stimulation without creating a desire to move on to higher forms of expression.
A senior thesis project for a business major can begin with the widespread utilization of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test. The MBTI test is used to measure the ways that employees and potential employees accomplish such tasks as collecting information, focusing attention, and evaluating information. Research could settle on the actual effectiveness of this test in real-world situations. Your thesis could also examine the potential for how well a person's type can predict a preference for a specific occupation, e.g., the link between intuition and careers in the arts.