Computer Science Capstone 👩‍🎓📚💻

Hello everyone~👋

I hope dead week is not too much (yet🙊). Capstone presentation week for most majors started last week so all I had been up to was to finish my part for the big presentation. So yes, today blog post will be about capstone because #I’vedonenothingbutthhatforawhile 😂.

First, some of you might ask, what is capstone? Capstone is “a senior thesis or senior seminar serves as the culminating and usually integrative experience of an educational program” (Wikipedia - because I actually don’t know how to explain it🤦‍♀️). To sum up, we all need to do capstone(s) to be able to graduate with our degree(s) at PLU. What makes capstone more fun (and stress 👀🧠) is that you get to choose what you want to do! Since I’m a computer science major, my capstone was about building a cross-platform application for textbook exchange with my group. You can either work individually or in group. In computer science department, it is recommended to work as a group because that’s mostly how it is in the tech industry and we should be more familiar with this concept before going to the real world.

You might notice the part when it’s said you can choose your own capstone project, but what if you don’t know what you wanna do (yet🧐)? Don’t worry, your professors, advisors and classmates are there to help. Or just anyone that can give you an idea of what you might find interesting to work on! I know I didn’t know what I wanted to work on, I spent a whole three days in the summer to think about what I wanted to do, and nothing came up to me at all (you might wonder why). Then the very first day of capstone class, we were asked about our ideas, right then, my brain tried to work really hard because I didn’t want to just sit there at the front being silent (not that I don’t do it most of the time when I’m in class, didn’t know why I felt more encouraged on that day… 😶, but really, don’t worry, there were many of my classmates who did not talk about their ideas and that did not make them less than anyone else).

Our application logo 😆

I ended up speaking about it in class just to be in a different group in the next minutes of the discussion… 😅 So yeah, I found a group to work with, our capstone project idea is from one of the teammate, but we for sure all enjoyed working on it together. Our capstone lasted for a full academic year, but I know some majors only have it for one semester.

Sorry if I scare anyone while reading this post 😂. It it true that there was a lot of work and sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, but that is why it’s our last project! I have learned so much while working on it and I actually feel more prepare for my future job (disclaimer: interview only, i hope😹). It gave me an opportunity to at least know what field I want to work for now, something that I have always been unsure about. Most importantly, it can definitely be something my group really proud of because we tried to put in all the skills and knowledge that we learned all these years along with months of research to create this “product” that is ours. To a certain extent, it shows what we know in the most creative way. And we’re all feel so rewarded and happy (mostly relieved) that it’s done at the end 🤗🤗🤗.

A n Y w A y, this is probably my last post as an undergraduate student because I’m graduating in 2 weeks🥳🥳! Thank you to everyone who spent time reading my posts! Since this is dead week, please don’t forget to take care of yourself while studying hard 💪💪! Good luck 🍀🍀🍀~

~Cloud ☁️~