{"id":21120,"date":"2013-10-30T13:27:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T13:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/?p=7056"},"modified":"2013-10-30T13:27:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T13:27:56","slug":"6-capstone-project-myths-dispelled-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/2013\/10\/30\/6-capstone-project-myths-dispelled-2\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Capstone Project Myths Dispelled"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span style=\"color: #d44500\">Six Capstone Project Myths Dispelled<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>Hi Honors Capstone Students!<\/p>\n<p>Since the Capstone proposal\/update deadlines are upon us, we thought it might be helpful if we share with you some of the more common questions we get from anxious Honors students (and prospective Honors students) about the Capstone project in general. So when you encounter that scared sophomore or freshman who fears for their social life or wonders &#8220;what&#8217;s the point in doing a Capstone?&#8221; you might have some answers for them! \u00a0So here they are.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #1: \u00a0If I have a double major, I have to complete two Capstones. \u00a0I will never sleep again, and I will collapse from exhaustion on convocation day.<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact<\/strong>: \u00a0Students who have more than one major or who are dually enrolled in more than one school do not have to complete more than one Capstone. You can choose the major within which you would like to complete your project. If both of your majors require a senior thesis, your Honors Capstone Coordinator and your faculty advisors may be able to help you integrate these individual projects into one Honors Capstone. \u00a0 In some cases, students combine their majors to really make their first mark on the world.<\/p>\n<p>One great example is Honors alum Colin Shea. \u00a0Colin was a dual TRF\/Biology major who traveled to Ecuador and made an amazing documentary featuring a public health program designed to tackle Dengue Fever in the region. \u00a0As far as we know, Colin got plenty of sleep and was awake enough to be really proud of himself on Honors Convocation day. Of course you can see his film here!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dengue Fever: Infectious Hope - Colin Shea - Honors 2011 Alum\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/38573730?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #2: \u00a0I&#8217;m a professional student, or just planning on entering the workforce after college. Capstones are only for people applying to graduate school. \u00a0I&#8217;ve had enough for now, thanks.<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact:<\/strong> \u00a0Your prospective employer is going to look for evidence that you have what it takes to\u00a0design and execute an independent project. \u00a0The real world demands (and it doesn&#8217;t ask politely) that you have judgment, discipline, commitment, and all kinds of things that are hard to just throw down on your resume. \u00a0Your ability to talk about your Capstone as a professional endeavor two years in the making is going to differentiate you from the non-Honors student who just did a one semester project. Guess who&#8217;ll get the job?<\/p>\n<p>If you are in a professional school, the school of education, or in the fine arts, you will develop an impressive portfolio with your Capstone. When it\u2019s time to apply to that agency, school, or even freelance, you will have a substantial piece of work to show off .\u00a0YOU are going to stand out as someone who has already demonstrated that they have what it takes.<\/p>\n<p>You might not even be aware of how a Capstone project can benefit you in the professional world, but here&#8217;s a real life example for you to mull over: \u00a0I (Blythe here) was hired by a Seattle dot com software start-up right out of college, even though I had a degree in &#8230; marine zoology! My senior Honors project was an analysis of historical shorebird populations on the Pacific coast (really). \u00a0My most marketable skill, I thought, was my ability to wrestle a porpoise into a tracking device. \u00a0So why did I get the second look among the clamoring hoard of business graduates salivating for a coveted position at a Seattle waterfront start-up? \u00a0Well, it was 1999 and html was all the rage, and I had previously tricked out my results into a web site so my advisor could view and approve my project from Alaska. \u00a0 They really liked that, and before I knew it I was making internet surveys with software that, 14 years later, is SurveyMonkey. \u00a0My point is, you might not know where your Capstone will lead you, but it can, and WILL, lead you somewhere!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7063\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/Porpoise-7.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7063\" class=\"wp-image-7063 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/Porpoise-7-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"So cute! But smells like death and wrestles like a WWA star.\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7063\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">My Capstone is adorbs!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #3: Capstones have to be 500 pages, and are for novelists, or masochists, only.<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact<\/strong>: There is no page minimum (or maximum) for any Capstone project, so please spare the innocent trees. \u00a0You will\u00a0work out the form and length of your project with your Capstone Advisor. \u00a0Advisors help you make decisions regarding the depth to which your project must go in order to meet the standards of your field, and this depth then determines the length of the written portion of your Capstone.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7067\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7067\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-7067\" src=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/unprinters-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"image of a logging truck and logs\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7067\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don&#8217;t be THAT Capstone.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #4: You don&#8217;t receive any credit for your Capstone, so why bother?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact:<\/strong> \u00a0No, it\u2019s not true! \u00a0Seniors fill out a 499 form each fall to enroll for\u00a0 1-3 credits as an independent study. \u00a0The 499 course is in your major. You get to choose how many credits you want (1,2, or 3). \u00a0In the spring, your faculty advisor will submit a grade for your Capstone (it must be a B or higher to graduate with Honors) and you will receive the number of credits for which you enrolled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7079 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/capstone.png\" alt=\"I'm not telling you it is going to be easy, i'm telling you it's going to be worth it!\" width=\"244\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #5: \u00a0In the spring of my senior year, I have to present my Capstone in front of a committee, whose job is to grill me mercilessly about my thesis. It will be the stuff of nightmares.<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact<\/strong>: Capstone Presentation Day is actually a lot of fun. Yes, you will present your Capstone to a small group of people. \u00a0Often this will include your advisor, reader, a couple other Honors students, and a member of Honors staff. \u00a0No one is at all interested in making you defend your thesis! \u00a0As a group, we&#8217;re curious, and we might ask you how you got started on your topic or if any part of your project was a surprise to you. \u00a0As a bonus, we have a very nice celebratory lunch for all the attendees, and we instagram all your smiling faces for your proud families. So, to sum up, it&#8217;s actually all really nice. Unicorns and rainbows nice.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7069\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7069\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-7069\" src=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/unicorn-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"picture of a unicorn, barfing a rainbow\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not that kind of unicorn.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Myth #6: \u00a0I&#8217;m a Newhouse major, and I have a capstone course for my major in Newhouse. That counts as my Capstone, right?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Fact: \u00a0<\/strong>Not necessarily. The Newhouse capstone courses are only one semester and the product is often a group project.\u00a0 Your Honors Capstone will be a multi-semester, independent project.\u00a0 There may be some overlap with your Newhouse capstone course, but it will not be the entirety of the project. \u00a0 One fine example is Honors alum Caitlin Dewey. \u00a0Caitlin&#8217;s project went way above and beyond a typical one-semester project. \u00a0She put her <a title=\"Funding Your Capstone\" href=\"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/capstone\/funding\/\"><strong>Crown award<\/strong><\/a> to good use, and partnered with developer Brian Dawson, and designer Kuan Luo, to produce SALT, an HTML5 iPad magazine that went on to win numerous awards and coverage throughout the world of journalism. \u00a0In short, it takes time to really make your project count. \u00a0 If you want to read more about Caitlin&#8217;s project,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediabistro.com\/10000words\/students-launch-web-based-ipad-magazine-and-48-hour-magazine-at-syracuse_b4294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong> some of the media coverage is here<\/strong><\/a>, and you can always <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/caitlin-dewey\/14\/932\/a55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>contact her through LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a>. Of course, her Capstone project listed right on her profile.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So there you have it Capstone students. \u00a0No reason to fear the Capstone! \u00a0As always, any time you are worried about the project and whether or not you can make it work, DO come talk to one of our Capstone Coordinators. \u00a0Because Honors is a campus wide program with students from all colleges and schools, we often have insights on how to make things work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six Capstone Project Myths Dispelled Hi Honors Capstone Students! Since the Capstone proposal\/update deadlines are upon us, we thought it might be helpful if we share with you some of the more common questions we get from anxious Honors students (and prospective Honors students) about the Capstone project in general. So when you encounter that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-capstone-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honors.syr.edu\/thesis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}