What is a Capstone?

I’ve been blessed by being forced to explain Capstones to family members as I’ve been talking to them about what I’m working on. I see it as a Masters Thesis sort of project; something to prove that you’re worthy of graduation. It’s a way to show off everything you’ve learned during your time as a student: both technical aptitude and modes of thought. It’s why the idea of making a web site as the Capstone project being a bad idea makes sense: a website can show you technical aptitude in both coding and design, but a website is a simple thing to think of. It limits your creativity to a known entity with hard-set standards and expectations.

I’ve found myself to be a competitive person recently, so I also see Capstones as a way to show that you’re the best soon-to-be-graduate at whatever field or task your Capstone encompasses. For a field that demands creativity, that means both creativity in the final product, as well as creativity in how you got there. IRIS made a good capstone, because he made a 60 minute video as a student, and working out a process to complete that on a student’s schedule in 4 years requires creativity. Chauncey’s smell-o-vision made a good capstone because he willed it into existence from science fiction and “World of Tomorrow” sort of ideals, and finding a way to do that requires creativity.

I think the idea behind the two semesters for Capstones is partly a reaction to the increasing scale of the projects. A good website could reasonably be brainstormed, designed, and produced in a semester.When people want to make amazing things, 5-ish months is not a reasonable amount of time for the whole process. Also, the longer the time-frame, the easier it is to make changes when problems show up. When you’re presenting your Capstone in a week, any problems that don’t break the project have to stay. When you’re presenting the Capstone in 10 months or so, you can make adjustments to your design to either solve or reduce the impact of challenges that arise.