Something that happens during the last weeks of the spring are the senior seminar presentations. This is the time when seniors start presenting on what they have been working on all semester, or sometimes all year, for their capstones. Seniors are making Facebook events and inviting friends to see the culmination of all of their hard work. What I love about this time is being able to share in the accomplishments of my peers. What I hate is having to struggle to put on my own capstone presentation. Many people don’t know what goes into a capstone project, and that is because it is different for every major. I have attended several different types, and will also be presenting my own. Here are what some majors do.
Sociology: As a Sociology major I am well aware of what effort I have put into my research. Last semester I completed a paper, and this semester I spent an entire class making a poster. This may sound easy, but it took the entire semester to get it right. I was working on it constantly to be able to convey to an audience in just a few short sentences what I researched and what it meant. These posters are then displayed for the school to see. People generally enjoy stopping by because all of the data came from the student body. The research quite literally is about the students.
English: English hosts their senior presentations, appropriately, in the fancy room in the library. It is there, tucked away on the third floor, that students talk about literature for twenty minutes, and the twenty some odd page papers they wrote this semester. Recently I listened to a presentation about how war trauma is represented in The Things They Carried.
Communication: This presentation, at least the qualitative one, was done in our auditorium where they frequently play movies. Students discussed qualitative research they did on various aspects of communication, including how RAs on campus negotiate relationships and how technology is changing interaction in restaurants. The nice thing about these presentations was I felt they were very relatable to Sociology, because they also frequently studied the college campus.
All in all I have been impressed with the quality of what I have seen from my friends. I am excited to finish my presentation, and also to see those who majored in film screen their films at Videopalooza. There is nothing like ending the year not only completing my own project but being able to support my friends as well.
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