What is a Capstone?

If you'd asked me what a capstone was about a year ago, I'd have told you I thought it was a hoop that you have to jump through in order to graduate, but that's mostly because I just didn't want to do one. I'd gone through new media and tried just about everything it had to offer and nothing was really clicking. But, now that I know what I want to work towards in my life, I feel like a capstone is more of a culmination of all the skills you've acquired through your college years wrapped up in one big, shiny project. The most memorable ones are from the people that took it seriously, and the ones that sucked were likely from people who thought that it was just a hoop to jump through. 

I hope to come out of this experience with a project I am proud of, more than anything else. My goal in life isn’t to acquire the best-paying job; it’s to work towards things that make me happy, like working in a bakery. It’s important to me that I enjoy whatever capstone project I end up with.

It’s completely normal to be given a semester-long project by a professor, or at least it’s been normal throughout my entire college career. So, it really only seems natural that the administration would prefer that we take two (or more) semesters to work on our capstones. Considering that it is supposed to represent all the things you’ve learned through college (which takes you four years or more to complete, typically), you should take longer than a single semester to work on the project. It just makes more sense that way.  

-Panda