What is the Capstone Project?
• The capstone project is the senior final project. Everyone as a junior, level one, goes through the basic introduction to everything in the class to a moderate level. As level two, you must have a final project as one of the requirements to graduate. It is generally a project that has to do with your field of interest. You have most of the year to work on it and part of the grade is presenting your project in the local Tech Prep competition with students from other programs and schools in competition with you. Many students come to class thinking they have what they want to do for life all laid out until they go through some of what the class offers. Several have changed to another area because they did not know what it was before but like it much more than what they thought they loved before. It is a great time to help you decide what you want to do in life where changing careers in college can be very expensive.
The capstone project is the final piece of work is central in the graduate degree. The required end product for all MALS students is a Master Thesis or Master’s Essay. After completing at least 27 credits of course work for the MALS degree, students undertake a Capstone Project. Specifically, they write a Master’s Thesis or a Master’s Essay on a topic related to the theme that unified their Interdisciplinary Concentration. Although the topics of the Capstone Projects are expected to be narrower than the themes that unify the Interdisciplinary Concentrations, they must not be discipline specific. Students are required to address their chosen topics from genuinely interdisciplinary perspectives and to advance an original point of view. These requirements apply both to students who choose the Essay option and to students who choose the Thesis option.
